More-than-Self-Defense
A.I.R. Gallery
155 Plymouth Street
Brooklyn NY 11201
Opening reception: Saturday, May 25, from 6–8pm
On View: May 25 – June 23, 2024
Hours: Weds - Sun, 12 - 6 pm
In More-than-Self-Defense, Mimi Biyao Bai uses drawing, sculpture, and installation to interrogate how the cultural fantasies we have inherited about violence, safety, and survival collide with our lived realities. Incorporating research into Westerns and action films, fungi, and doomsday preppers, Bai asks: what does it mean to be prepared? How are representations of safety and survival centered around the individual rather than the collective or the structural? What are alternative modes of survival, adaptation, and creation?
Press Release
Textures of Feminist Perseverance at Cuchifritos Gallery /
Textures of Feminist Perseverance
Cuchifritos Gallery + Project Space
(located inside the Essex Market)
88 Essex Street, No. 21
New York, NY 10002
Opening reception: Friday March 1, 6 - 8 pm
On view: March 1 - April 27
Hours: Weds - Sunday, 12 - 6 pm and by appointment
Presented in two venues–Cuchifritos Gallery and The James Gallery–Textures of Feminist Perseverance asks how women’s daily experiences and contributions are recorded in the public spheres of our physical, virtual, and social lives. On this occasion, Cuchifritos Gallery is very pleased to present two projects, Mimi Biyao Bai’s Net within the gallery space and the collaborative project I Pledge on Essex Market’s exterior windows.
Exhibition overview PDF | ArtForum
Net, artist Mimi Biyao Bai’s site-responsive project, contemplates safety, survival, and visibility. Drawing a parallel between camouflage and assimilation, Bai considers both as labor-intensive adaptations for survival that selectively reveal and/or conceal.
Obscuring the traditional white box of the gallery in a wash of safety orange—a color often worn by hunters due to its high visibility to most humans and the difficulty of discernment it causes for prey animals—Bai asks visitors to question how one can be simultaneously invisible and hyper-visible. Effective camouflage requires the camoufleur to be aware of their environment, how they are being perceived in relation to it, and who is doing the perceiving.
Suspended across the space, an accumulation of individual knots forms a flexible mass that can expand and contract in response to the environment. Net can be viewed as a temporary shelter, a flayed ghillie suit, and a matrix of entanglements that can catch, hold, and capture. Hand-made using thousands of yards of nylon and cotton twine, the artist used her body weight to achieve the proper tension for each knot. Bai’s intense physical labor makes tangible the often invisible and immaterial effort necessary to “blend in” with one’s surroundings.
By abstracting fragments of her personal and familial history into patterns and forms, the artist has developed an iconography that she employs throughout her larger practice. A prominent example is the ghost, seen in This Kind of Memory Requires Motion on view in the gallery’s backroom. The character of the ghost emerged from a costume Bai wore as a child during her first Halloween in the US, then evolved through her research into ghillie suits—garments worn by snipers and hunters to conceal their bodies from an enemy or target. Through drawing and sculpture, Bai re-imagines and enacts alternative perspectives on survival, adaptation, interdependence, and creative possibility.
Also on view, on the exterior of Essex Market at the corner of Norfolk and Broome streets, is a re-presentation of I Pledge. Presented here as a vinyl installation, I Pledge was created by Amy Khoshbin, House of Trees, and Naomi Shihab Nye in response to mounting xenophobia and gender-based violence for the one-year anniversary of the 2017 Women’s March. I Pledge continues to advocate for a public covenant of respect for all. The collaborators offer a poetic pledge to fight for inclusive, empathetic, humane, and intersectional change.
The exhibition continues at The James Gallery in midtown Manhattan, centering the work of 17 female-identifying artists, who imagine ways for women to take up the space they are already producing. What might a city honoring women’s lived experiences look like? How can the city be a living archive of women’s accomplishments in a visual vocabulary that may not already be recognized in the dominant discourse? This work is often achieved through a preoccupation with hands-on and labor-intensive making practices that foreground physical and embodied attentiveness to materials, social gathering, and awareness of time.
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Textures of Feminist Perseverance is conceived by artist Dina Weiss and curator Katherine Carl, Ph.D. (James Gallery Institute for Art, Inquiry & Collaborative Practice, CUNY Graduate Center) and presented in partnership with Jodi Waynberg, Executive Director of Artists Alliance Inc and Director of Cuchifritos Gallery + Project Space.
Net Making Class /
I’m teaching a net making class this December, please join me if you’re interested - link
Sunday December 17, 2023
1:30 - 4:30 PM
Pioneer Works
159 Pioneer Street, Brooklyn, NY 11231
Nets have long been used by people for trapping, carrying, and holding, in addition to being the basis for certain types of camouflage, like ghillie suits. Join artist Mimi Bai for an introduction to net making, including techniques for starting a net, basic knots, expansion, contraction, and repair.
A Tale of Errantry to the End of the Night /
A Tale of Errantry to the End of the Night - link
Curated by Chiarina Chen
On view: September 6 - 16
Hours: 11 am – 8 pm (by appointment)
Opening: Wednesday September 6, 5 - 9 pm
Closing Event: Healing Gathering and Raga Music with Chiarina Chen and Nikhil Shah | Saturday September 16, 6 - 8 pm
Chain Theater
312 W 36 St 4th Fl, NY, NY 10018
Screening at the Rockaway Hotel /
SCREENING WITH LIVE SCORE BY HUMEYSHA
Thursday August 17, 2023
7 pm @ The Rockaway Hotel
108-10 Rockaway Beach Dr, Queens, NY 11694
Gathering at FiveMyles /
I'm excited to be showing a drawing series alongside other members of Asianish, an informal group of AAPI artist and arts professionals founded in 2018 by Cecile Chong, Gabriel de Guzman, Sara Jimenez, and Maia Cruz Palileo.
GATHERING - link | press release
On view July 8 - August 13
Curated by Sophia Ma and Cecile Chong
Opening: Sunday July 9, 5:30 - 8 pm
FiveMyles
558 St. Johns Place, Brooklyn, NY 11238
Hours: Thurs - Sun, 1 - 6 pm or by appointment
Pioneer Works Residency /
I’m very pleased to be an artist in residence at Pioneer Works this summer (April - July).
Please join us for monthly open studios during Second Sundays - link.
Pioneer Works
159 Pioneer Street
Brooklyn, NY 11231
Screening and live score at BCA /
SPECIAL SCREENING WITH LIVE SCORE BY HUMEYSHA - link
Saturday February 4, 2023
4 pm @ The Plaza Theater
539 Tremont St, Boston, MA 02116
Panel discussion at Pao Arts Center /
PANEL DISCUSSION & EXHIBITION WALKTHROUGH - link | press release
Saturday January 28, 2023
Artists in Conversation: Mimi Bai with Gohar Dashti and Ngoc-Tran Vu
2 pm @ Pao Arts Center
99 Albany Street, Boston, MA 02111
Guided Exhibition Walkthrough with Mimi Bai
4 pm @ Mills Gallery
551 Tremont St. Boston, MA 02116
Solo exhibition at BCA /
Mimi Bai: HIDE AND SEE, curated by Amanda Contrada
Boston Center for the Arts - Mills Gallery
551 Tremont Street
Boston, MA 02116
On view: December 16, 2022 - February 18, 2023 (open Weds - Sat, 1 - 6 pm)
Opening Reception: Friday, December 16, 2022, 6–9pm
Artist in Conversation and Exhibition Walkthrough: Saturday, January 28 @ 2pm
Film Screening with Live Score: Saturday, February 4, 2023 @ 4 pm
In Mimi Bai: HIDE AND SEE, Bai contemplates camouflage as a metaphor for assimilation, a labor-intensive process, and a methodology for survival and communication that selectively conceals and reveals.
Camouflage involves making oneself invisible or hyper-visible, sometimes simultaneously. Bai draws parallels between this process and her experience of assimilation as an immigrant from China. She contextualizes this personal history within a historical and political framework that traces how capitalism and settler colonialism demand self-effacement in exchange for opportunity and a sense of safety.
Bai marks the unrecognized labor of assimilation using clay, ink, and string, as well as the encumbered movements of her body captured on camera. These repetitive and taxing actions make physical the often invisible and immaterial exertions required to “blend in” to one’s environment.
By abstracting fragments of her personal and familial history into patterns and forms, Bai has developed her own iconography that she employs throughout the works in the exhibition. A prominent example is the ghost, which emerged from a costume Bai wore as a child during her first Halloween in the US, then evolved through her research into ghillie suits — garments worn by snipers and hunters to conceal their bodies from an enemy or target.
The ghosts in the exhibition serve as avatars for the artist as she reflects on the shifting and conditional state of the alien and the marginalized. Across drawing, sculpture, and film, Bai re-imagines and enacts alternative perspectives on survival, adaptation, improvisation, and creative possibility.
Screening at CARA /
A special screening of Hide and See featuring a live score by Zain Alam (Humeysha).
Conjuring #2 at CARA
The Center for Art, Research and Alliances
225 West 13th Street
New York, NY 10011
Friday July 22, 2022 @ 7pm
Link
Maryland Film Festival /
SFAI Video /
In this video, made during my residency at the Santa Fe Art Institute, I discuss my process, current projects, the role of labor in my practice, and I share a sneak peek at Hide and See.
Special thanks to Lyra Mancini and Nuttaphol Ma.
FCA Auction /
I’m pleased to be part of Sonia Louise Davis Selects: Exhibition and Sale to Benefit the Foundation for Contemporary Arts
December 9-18, 2021
Greene Naftali Gallery
508 West 26th Street, Ground Floor, NY, NY 10001
You can learn more about FCA and the participating artists here.
Rooftop Films /
Rooftop Films & Green-Wood Cemetery Present: Cemetery Shorts
Saturday, July 24, 2021
Green-Wood Cemetery (500 25th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11232)
Doors @ 7:45 PM
Purchase tickets HERE
An excerpt of the film I have been working on with Sam B. Jones will be screening at Rooftop Films. I will also be presenting a site-specific installation as part of the screening.
You can learn more about this ongoing project here.
NYFA/NYSCA Fellowship /
Excited to share that I'm a 2021 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Interdisciplinary Work! Learn more about it here.
What we become when we are unbound /
WHAT WE BECOME WHEN WE ARE UNBOUND
curated by Jasmine Wahi and Rebecca Pauline Jampol
February 13 - April 20, 2021
Project for Empty Space
800 Broad St, Newark, NJ 07102
Opening February 13th from 1 pm - 5 pm
I will be showing 10 drawings that are part of my continuing work with ghosts, camouflage, and assimilation.
Given health and safety concerns, there will be both a limited capacity opening and a virtual tour available:
Virtual Tour: HERE
Opening Feb 13, 1 - 5 pm: RSVP HERE.
MAD x Bemis /
In Conversation: Rachel Adams, Mimi Bai & Luam Melake - Friday Nov. 20 @ 2pm EST
I will be discussing my creative practice with fellow artist Luam Melake and Rachel Adams, Chief Curator and Director of Programs at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts.
The event is co-hosted by the Museum of Arts and Design and the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art. More information and a link to the event can be found here.
SFAI Tilt Podcast /
Tilt Podcast: Liminality, Disembodiment & Conspicuous Concealment
For episode 3 of Santa Fe Art Institute’s Tilt Podcast, I spoke with SFAI’s Residency Director Toni Gentilli and fellow artists May Maylisa Cat and Millian Pham Lien Giang about labor, assimilation, and cultural production. May, Millian, and I are all participants of SFAI’s 2020 Labor Residency.
You can listen to the podcast, find out more about May, Millian, and SFAI here.
Death Becomes Her /
Thrilled to be a part of Death Becomes Her, an exhibition curated by Jenny Gerow and Harry Weil
February 20 - April 19
BRIC
647 Fulton St
Brooklyn, NY
Presented by BRIC and Green-Wood
Press: The Cut, AMNY