Ming Yuen S Ma - Work: Videos

Xin Lu Video Bus Tours, Los Angeles
Saturday, May 3rd and Sunday, May 4, 2008

As part of Visual Communications’ 24th annual Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, Ma presented two site-specific video bus tours. The two tours took place on Saturday, May 3rd and Sunday, May 4th, 2008. In addition to the video screening on-board the 50-seat tour bus, the audience also experienced a curated tour route that transversed sites including the Directors Guild of America in West Hollywood, the Chinese American Museum at El Pueblo de Los Angeles, LAX airport, and the Mashti Malone’s ice cream shop in Hollywood. Ma, along with guest tour guides Amitis Motevalli, Sandra de la Loza (representing Pocho Research Society), and Kristina Wong provided “on the road” performances, informative lectures, guerilla hijacking, and reflective discussions during the tour. Diep Tran, chef and owner of Good Girl Dinette in Highland Park, provided lunch boxes with a specially prepared bao (Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Filipino steamed buns) sampler, accompanied by Asian soft drinks or bottled water. See the lunch menu here and read more about how Tran came up with it for the bus tour. Dessert came in the form of ice cream sandwiches provided by one of the best ice cream shops in Los Angeles, Mashti Malone's, in Persian flavors such as rosewater, saffron, lavender, and orange blossom.

Download Map of Bus Tour (PDF)

Download Press Release of Bus Tour (PDF)

Guest Tour Guides:
	Amitis Motevalli was born in Tehran, Iran and moved to the US in 1977. In 1995 she received a BA from SFSU in Art with a minor in Women’s studies and in 1998 an MFA from Claremont Graduate University. Her work as an artist incorporates a combination of near-eastern aesthetic with a western art education. Motevalli states, “Being an immigrant in the US shows in my work a duality of culture, both natural and learned. In all of my work, I create a dialogue that critiques dominant views of oppressed people and culture in general”.
	The Pocho Research Society (PRS) is a collective of artists, activists and rasquache historians who reside in Los Angeles. Dedicated to the systematic investigation of space, memory and displacement, the PRS understands history as a battleground of the present, a location where hidden & forgotten selves hijack & disrupt the oppression of our moment. In Operation Invisible Monument, the PRS confronts the construction of history through the public monument. Anonymous members installed mock historic plaques at different locations. The PRS identified these strategic sites in an effort to pay homage to historic erasure. By inserting plaques, the PRS hopes to interrupt historical amnesia, trigger memory and interrogate the present in order to see the world with fresh eyes rather than the diesel haze of a media-blurred present. The result, ideally, is a reconstruction or destruction of the hegemonic worldview responsible for the erection of the site's original monuments.
	Kristina Wong is a nationally presented solo performer, writer, actor, educator, culture jammer, and filmmaker. Described by the East Bay Express as "brutal but hilarious... a woman who takes life's absurdities very seriously," her body of performance work includes short and full-length solo performance works, outrageous street theater stunts and pranks, subversive internet installations, and plays and sketch comedy. In her irreverently signature style, Wong’s performances, presented both as announced events along the tour and as guerilla theater at unexpected moments, will give a vigorous shake to the notions of “cultural tourism” and “authenticity”, and turn some of these problematic notions on their heads. For more information, go to Kristina’s web site.

Participating Organizations:
The Chinese American Museum is jointly developed and operated by the Friends of the Chinese American Museum (FCAM) and El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument, a department of the City of Los Angeles. Located at the El Pueblo Plaza in downtown Los Angeles, CAM is housed in the last surviving structure of the city’s original Chinatown. CAM’s mission is to foster a deeper understanding and appreciation of America’s diverse heritage by researching, preserving, and sharing the history, rich cultural legacy, and continuing contributions of Chinese Americans. For more information, please visit www.camla.org. Open Wednesdays - Saturdays, 10am - 3pm. Founded in 1970, Visual Communications is the nation’s premier Asian Pacific American media arts center. The mission of Visual Communications is to promote intercultural understanding through the creation, presentation, preservation and support of media works by and about Asian Pacific Americans. Visual Communications will present the 24th edition of The Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival May 1 through 8, 2008 at the Directors Guild of America, Laemmle's Sunset 5 Theatre, and Aratani/Japan America Theatre, among others. The Film Festival will include the latest new works by established and emerging Asian American filmmakers and video artists; Asian international artists; and filmmaker seminars, panel discussions and symposiums on topics relevant to Asian Pacific cinema. For more information, please visit http://www.vconline.org/