Benji Hsu

In Bed #1 (2022)
Ink on Print 27” x 36”

In Bed #2 (2022)
Ink on Print 27” x 36”

In Bed photos engage with the complex history of Asian American identity and its relation to the formation of American identity. The conceptual U.S. citizen subject comes into being through the expulsion of Asianness in the figure of the Asian immigrant. The formation of Asian Americanness comes from its constantly shifting positioning between visibility and invisibility, foreignness and domestication/assimilation, and the desired exotic and the foreign other. Existing in this confusing space is what dictates Asian American representation. Patterns of this contradictions define Asian American identity leaving them as incomprehensible. As such, being misunderstood becomes the same as being foreign, and the proximity to foreignness leaves room for conflation between Asian Americaness and Asianess. The word Asian is already used to denote a different version of the “ordinary” American. The two select photos point to this history of racialized othering and illuminate the in-between space that Asian Americans live in.

Benji Hsu (he/him)

Benji Hsu is a Taiwanese American from Oakland, California, and a junior at NYU Gallatin. As an artist, he uses lens-based media to explore themes of racialized bodies and sexuality. He creates intimate projects to navigate societal constructs of race while reflecting on his identity and asks the question of what it means to be Asian American.

Artist Statement

Hsu’s In Bed photos engage with the complex history of Asian American identity and its relation to the formation of American identity. The conceptual U.S. citizen subject comes into being through the expulsion of Asianness in the figure of the Asian immigrant. The formation of Asian Americanness comes from its constantly shifting positioning between visibility and invisibility, foreignness and domestication/assimilation, and the desired exotic and the foreign other.

Existing in this confusing space is what dictates Asian American representation. Patterns of this contradictions define Asian American identity leaving them as incomprehensible. As such, being misunderstood becomes the same as being foreign, and the proximity to foreignness leaves room for conflation between Asian Americaness and Asianess. The word Asian is already used to denote a different version of the “ordinary” American. The two select photos point to this history of racialized othering and illuminate the in-between space that Asian Americans live in.