As we move into Pride Month, we’ll continue to share stories from past and present staff on their thoughts of how organizing and art interplay. Check for a new story each week.
“I love the idea of the community having a say in what happens to them and what they want to see happening in their own community,” former AAOP Gender Justice Organizer Janet says.
“It feels so powerful when we, as someone who is part of the community, is also doing work with the community. It’s not just addressing issues that are conducive to remaining in power.”
In college, Janet began organizing around food justice. While at Augsburg, there was a food pantry that helped provide extra food.
But, Janet says, the people using the pantry were mostly students of color and the donations were not culturally relevant. For example, there wouldn’t be any Jasmine rice or familiar Asian or African foods.
So Janet arranged donations of more culturally relevant foods like lard and flour to make tortilla on campus. The organizing around food justice grew to be cultural organizing, especially because it was important that the people in the community were able to also be part of the process.
Janet brings this cultural organizing lens to their other work, especially when it comes to crafting.
“I don’t consider myself a visual artist,” Janet says. “I love referring to what I do as a craft rather than an art form because it’s something I’m always practicing and working on, but at the same time, I’ve been slowly integrating more of this into my work because I know that there’s value in art.”
In addition to photography and knitting, Janet also handcrafts fruit earrings. As a queer person, creating fruit earrings was a way to reclaim the idea of being “fruity.”
Not only that, but the earrings Janet makes are generally citrus — like oranges, lemons, and limes.
Citrus fruits were important to Janet, especially because as a Vietnamese person, “how you cut the lime or lemon to use in cooking is important.”
Janet shares that their mom was always adamant about the limes being cut the “correct” way. They didn’t understand why things had to be done in that particular way, but are now able to recognize tradition in cooking and the beauty behind following what had been passed down through the generations.
“There are times when approaching issues from a purely political lens doesn’t work,” Janet says. “I think art is so digestible by a lot of people. It’s making a political statement but at the same time, it’s just really tangible and I think that’s where art can fit in with organizing.”