olivia ong evans

Recap💧Writing Diasporic Dreams and Futures💧 🌊On December 20, a Saturday afternoon, we gathered on zoom for a sweet session about nostalgia, diaspora and memory. Inspired by @oliviaongevans ‘ ongoing film project, Kota Hujan (City of Rain), we journaled, meditated, and cocreated collective bodies of water in relation to our memories and dreams. Our bodies and earth are both made up of 70% water. If you imagine yourself to be a body of water, what shapes, velocities, temperatures do you embody? Where do you get the water from, who nourishes you, where are you going? Thank you @squeakybuffalo for hosting us and everyone for dreaming together 💤 Facilitation and 35mm film photos by huiyin Zhou and Laura Dudu; the screenshots shared here include contributions from workshop participants.

TOMORROW! Join us for a Zoom Workshop: Writing Diasporic Dreams and Futures 📅Time: Saturday, December 20, 3–5pm ET / 12–2 PT 🎫RSVP: Free; register @squeakybuffalo website In the deep of December, cozy up and join for a virtual writing workshop on dreams, nostalgia, and diasporic home-making. What alternative knowledges, homes, and futures can we access through dreaming and writing together? How do dreams and nostalgia open up a portal for future-making, in connection with our own bodies and the bodies of land, water, and time? CAO Collective will lead a virtual session on dreaming as a relational method and collective writing practice. Participants are invited to share bedtime stories, dreams, and reflect on their relationships to home/land, rest and sleep. Through somatic practice, guided writing activities and facilitated conversations, participants are invited to weave a collective dreamscape for resistance and healing. Please ensure stable access to the internet and writing tools such as journals, pens, and online collaborative documents. This event will be facilitated in English but participants are encouraged to write/doodle/create in whatever languages they feel called to. This event is presented as an invitation to deepen into Olivia Ong Evans’ upcoming film Kota Hujan (City of Rain), which was screened in person at Squeaky Wheel in early December. The stories co-created in this workshop will be included in CAO Collective’s long-term social practice project, “One Thousand and One Nights: A Queer Journey of Dreams & Diaspora”, culminating in a collective dream archive.

This Friday, December 5, at 7pm join us for our last in-person event of the year with Olivia Ong Evans' in-progress film, Kota Hujan (City of Rain). Kota Hujan (City of Rain) is a collection of nostalgic memories and playful tales that trace the shifting meanings of home through time and across diasporas. The film features my mother’s narration of stories from her childhood in Bogor, Indonesia during the 1960s and ’70s. These recollections are interwoven with scenes of the city and its landscapes from our return visit to her hometown in 2024. The soundtrack for the film features recordings from a live performance by the Nusantara Arts Javanese Gamelan group in Buffalo, NY. The artist will present on the process of making the in-progress film, including traveling to Bogor in 2024, editing the footage filmed at that time, subtitling and translation, as well as the challenges and insights that have come up through the process. The talk will feature selected footage of the work in progress to show how the film is taking shape. Learn more and rsvp in the link in our bio. [Please note the time on the image for the workshop on December 20 is incorrect; it will be at 3pm ET] This is the first of two events celebrating Evans’ work who was a Workspace Resident with Squeaky Wheel in 2021; later in December, Saturday, December 20, CAO Collective (Chinese Artists & Organizers Collective) will lead a virtual writing workshop offering participants the chance to dive deeper into the film’s themes through their own reflections and connections. These events are supported by a Support for Artists grant from the @nyscouncilonthearts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and @teigerfoundation @oliviaongevans #OliviaOngEvans @caocollective #CAOCollective

We’re engaged! ❤️ Photos by Gabriel LaMarca @gml_photo