April 29, 2026
Happy to Be Here
A five-person photo exhibition, Where Words Fail Us, is currently on display at the Asian Resource Center Gallery through July 2026. An artist talk is scheduled for Friday, June 26, from 6–8 PM.
I have struggled to find the language to announce this show, even though it opened nearly three months ago. The exhibit contains twelve of my photos documenting my mother, Maylynn, and her life with stage 4 lung cancer.
Those photos were never intended for the public eye. The decision to hang them on a wall was a slow unfolding, requiring an enormous amount of trust in the curator, Jessica Chen, and several difficult conversations with my family to define the boundaries of our privacy.
Then came the creeping thoughts: Will my family think I’m over-sharing? Do my friends have patience for something this heavy? Do I want acquaintances or colleagues to see this part of my life? Will a stranger look at my mother’s pain and see only a dying woman? Finally, a realization: These photos are not all of who we are. I cannot control the periphery of my own images; I can only control their visibility.
Not everyone has to feel the same weight, and there should be no begrudging them their distance. At the opening, the event photographer asked to take a photo of me standing next to a large-scale portrait of my mother, whose hair had fallen from radiation therapy. I was less than thrilled. “Can you pretend you’re happy to be here?” she asked, her tone joking but flippant.
I held a grimace for two shots before she gave up on me. It was a jarring reminder of the strange tax we pay when we share our lives: the occasional pressure to smile beside our own heartbreak. There is the photographer, grateful to be seen, and there is the person who knows exactly what it took to let these images go. In sharing this work, I am finding a way to be both.
Where Words Fail Us
On display February - July 2026
Asian Resource Center Gallery
310 8th St. Oakland, CA 94607
Featuring work by Ngân Vũ, Senny Mau, Laura Ming Wong, Stella Kalaw and Jessica Chen
https://www.ebpco.org/where-words-fail-us