Public Workshop: On March 19th from 1 to 3pm, join exhibiting artist Stamps School of Art & Design Assistant Professor Angela Chen for a collaborative bookmaking workshop! Drawing on the themes from her latest book and exhibition After School 課後, participants are invited to critique educational systems by cutting up old textbooks and creating new photocopy collages. All materials will be provided, but participants are welcome to bring their own texts to deconstruct!

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Angela Chen - Artist Statement: Angela Chen’s After School brings together collage, sculpture, and new and historical photographs to unpack the culture of after school tutoring centers in California. Known as 補習班 (buxiban) in Chinese, after schools are referred to colloquially as “cram schools” and by scholars as “shadow education.” Operating simultaneously as spaces of community, care, and control, these schools can be demanding and factory-like; but they also deliver essential childcare services to busy parents, many of whom are new immigrants. As a child and young adult, Chen attended and worked at Futurelink School, a buxiban and her parents’ business. Located in the San Gabriel Valley, CA, Futurelink served hundreds of primarily East Asian students, providing them with homework help and supplemental English and math lessons. Inspired by Futurelink’s vast archive of photographs, workbooks, objects, and advertisements, After School explores the role of education in Asian American enclaves and challenges stereotypes about Asian American students. Assemblages combine Futurelink photographs with photographs of California Chinese schools during the Chinese Exclusion era to reflect on the ongoing legacies of racism, segregation, and US immigration policy within the Asian American experience.