mel taing

Ode to Durian (We Are Ineffable)
✨🌙 This is my favorite photo I have ever created to date. This work will be featured in a virtual exhibition that opens this (TONIGHT!) Friday, July 24th at 6pm with Unbound Visual Arts. Check my story for the links to register + hear amazing artists tell stories and share their works.
✨🌙 “I’m always searching for you because you’re hard to find in this part of the world. You don’t travel well, and I know that airports have given you grief for years. It’s not fair that people treat you this way. You’re perpetually misunderstood. It’s as if the language you speak cannot ever be translated in this country. I feel like I have to give all these disclaimers about you. I tell people not to be alarmed by your spikes. I attempt to prepare people for your scent, knowing the second they encounter this, they’ll back away in disgust. I stumble on my words as I try to explain the way you slide effortlessly between sweet and savory. I mention all these other familiar tastes in the hopes that they could understand -- flavors like mango and banana and onion. I don’t know why I try so hard. You’re ineffable.” #khmer #cambodian #durian #khmerican #cambodianamerican #khmerfood #odetodurian

Today, I turn 32! 
🌊⚡️
My baby son Chantha Darragh Sheehy was born on November 18 and since then, I’ve been learning what it’s like to be a mom. I asked Colin how he would describe parenthood and he said, “I thought it would be like a lightning bolt but now I see that it’s like the ocean.” I don’t think I could describe it better than that.
🌊⚡️
These past 5 months have been very much like the ocean in that it has ebbed and flowed with joy and challenge, exhaustion and deep, loving community. My little family has received waves of care in the form of dinner deliveries, baby care support, the cleaning of dishes, the folding of laundry, and tender conversations over the phone. 🌊⚡️ For my birthday, I simply wish to say thank you to my loved ones for loving me. I want to say thank you to Colin for being my loving husband and working so hard alongside me to care for our baby, and to say an extra special thank you to Chantha for coming into this world.

🚨EXHIBITION ALERT! 🚨 I’m so honored to be a part of my second exhibition this year! It closes this Saturday, 10/25. Be sure to make the closing reception!
 Idioms of Distress: Being Khmer Elsewhere brings together a new generation of post–Khmer Rouge Khmer artists. In a culture shaped by survival and diaspora, this show insists on visibility—honoring our elders while making space for those who have never seen themselves reflected on a gallery wall. We create while holding close the legacies our ancestors endured so much for. 
 Venue: AS220 Aborn Gallery, Providence, RI Dates: October 4–25, 2025 Gallery Hours: Thu–Fri 1–6 PM, Sat 12–5 PM Closing Night: Saturday, October 25 — performance by @khmae_urban  (Chummeng Soun) + Artist Q&A Artists: Vuthy Lay, Savonnara Sok, Samnang Ken Riebe, Princess Moon, Oussa Mira Bun, Mel Taing, Marius Keo Marjolin, Linda Sok, Leiyana Simone Pereira, Kannetha Brown, Jamie Keth, Daniella Thach, Dana Heng, Chummeng Soun, Alex Tum, Adrianna Touch. curated by Savonnara Sok and honorable mentions Joe Bun Keo

Happy Birthday, my love. 🌻✨

These are photos we took of each other a few weeks ago after the shed in our backyard was demolished to build a new one. It felt right to mark this moment in time, to kick the dust around the foundation of the past and wonder at what will come next. The sun was quickly setting and the August golden light perfectly matched the recently bloomed sunchoke plants my best friend Karen planted in our yard 3 years ago.

This year’s revolution around the sun has brought us both great grief and great joy. Earlier this year, Colin’s beautiful mom Carol passed away unexpectedly in the same exact window of time we found out we were pregnant. Every holiday, every new achievement or event is now marked by both the passing and arrival of our most loved people. For this birthday, I want to cherish the being that was born today and also honor the being that birthed you. 

Dear Colin, to cherish you today is to also honor your mom and all that she nourished within you: a generous spirit, a warm and thoughtful heart, and a deep devotion to your loved ones. As we continue to evolve as best friends, lovers, and parents, I am over the moon to spend life by your side. I love you and for this birthday, I deeply wish for you to see yourself as your wonderful mom always saw you. 

Please send Colin your extra love today. ✨

Join exhibiting artist Mel Taing [ @m.ltaing ] and teaching artist Kelly Tan [ @tanjoreenie ] on Saturday, 7/26 from 2pm-4pm for an afternoon of arts activation inspired by “Where We Meet: Imagining Gardens and Futures.” Get your own garden-inspired portrait taken with friends and family, share your hopes, dreams, and wishes for the future of Chinatown, and learn about how green space advocacy plays a role in the thriving and vitality of the neighborhood. RSVP at paoartscenter.org or go to @paoartscenter . Please note that registering for this event does not guarantee a portrait session with Mel. We will have an on-site sign-up form, first come, first served. Each session will be 5 minutes. “Where We Meet: Imagining Gardens and Futures” is on view July 18 - October 10, 2025. Curated by Gabrielle Niu, PhD. This public program is supported by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ Public Art for Spatial Justice program, with funding from the Barr Foundation [ @barrfdn ] and the Fund for the Arts at NEFA [ @nefa_arts ] !

This Friday at AAAS comference in Boston! I'm so excited and grateful to be in presence with these fabulous artists and scholars and cultural workers.  Contemporary Asian American Arts and Activism in Boston A roundtable conversation on how Asian diasporic artists in Boston navigate their arts practice, activism, and teaching in our contemporary moment. Join us for an early morning gentle chat. We will wake up, dream, and live together 💛  Westin Boston Seaport, Room Hale Association for Asian American Studies Conference Friday April 18, 8:15-9:45 AM Jewel Pereyra Mel Taing Lani Asunción kathy wu Neha Rayamajhi  Wenxuan Xue ✨✨✨

We’re excited to introduce the newest cohort of Neighborhood Salon Luminaries at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum! Inspired by Isabella’s legacy of vibrant artist salons, the Luminaries Program brings together Boston artists and cultural leaders to exchange ideas, spark collaborations, and help shape the Museum’s public programming—including Free Days, community engagement, and Third Thursdays. Swipe through to meet the cohort!

On my 30th birthday this spring, I went to the ocean with my love, Colin, and my best friend, Sam. I collected all of these sea shells and placed them in a beautiful woven pouch that Sam gifted me. The shells sat in my studio for weeks until I suddenly wanted to make self-portraits with them. 🐚 ✨ I kept thinking about how shells are what’s left after the creature within has died. The soft, squishy self fades away and then this hard yet delicate artifact is left behind. I made this work after starting EMDR therapy. The “flooding” of emotion and pain I experienced after beginning left me completely raw, the shell ripped off leaving the squishy self exposed. I move differently, I don’t say yes to everything as often, and I go quiet instead of loud when things get hard. Throughout a lifetime, many soft squishy selves die off, leaving nothing but their hard shells until new selves begin growing. I wonder, what new beginning is growing now?

Happy birthday, my love. I can’t wait to keep journeying through life by your side. Thank you for all that you are, all that you transform through, and all that you do.

Mel Taing did a fantastic job leading us through some mindful (and enjoyably silly) warmups and empowering us for the camera 💖 Photos from our third pop-up of the season, Self-Portraiture as Self Love, on June 15 by @m.ltaing #luckyknotarts #meltaing #selfportraitureasselflove #lynnma #northshorema #photoworkshop

The amount of joy and affection that filled the room at Mel Taing’s Self-Portraiture as Self Love workshop yesterday afternoon was spectacular. Thanks for sharing this special space with us. We can’t wait to gush over the photos with y’all! 🌻📸💙☁️ #luckyknotarts @m.ltaing

Meet your instructor! Mel Taing (she/her) @m.ltaing is a Cambodian American photographer, community artist and educator. Mel specializes in creative portraiture that captures the vibrance, radiance and joy of the intersecting communities in her life. Her process is deeply collaborative and focuses on co-creating new, shared visions that become a mirror for her subjects to witness themselves. As a child of Cambodian refugees, she is deeply interested in the resilience that is created through community. Her portrait sessions are healing in action - honoring QTDBIPOC+ (Queer, Trans, Disabled, Black, Indigenous, People of Color) folx and creating spaces for us to play, witness, and celebrate our truest selves. Mel believes that resilience does not always need to center the pain experienced but rather the ways in which we seek joy. Beyond her portraiture practice, Mel is currently an educator at the Harvard Ed Portal Artist Pipeline Program, a lead community engagement artist for the Boston Chinatown Cultural Plan, and a freelance photographer documenting artists and arts exhibitions. 🌸 Just FIVE seats remain for Mel’s Self-Portraiture as Self Love workshop at Lynn Museum on Saturday, June 15. Tickets are going fast: grab yours now at link in bio! @lynnmuseum #luckyknotarts #lynnma #meltaing #selfportraitureasselflove #selfportraiture #northshorema #aapi #aanhpi #photographyworkshop