Bernice Afriyie | Arts Editor
Featured image: Cho’s work deals with matters of sexuality, family, race and mental health. | Courtesy of Heidi Cho
What does it mean to be an intersectional feminist? It represents fighting systematic forms of oppression on various fronts while accepting or working out a multifaceted identity. Heidi Cho, an interdisciplinary and multimedia artist, uses her work to confront issues that matter to her. Her work deals with matters of sexuality, family, race and mental health in a quirky and provocative way. In anticipation of Cho’s collaboration with GUTS Does the Internet, Excalibur chats with Cho about her art work, inspiration and feminist views.
Excalibur: What inspired you to become an artist/innovator?
Heidi Cho: I started making zines and comics when I was 17 years old, as a way to address the lack of self-representation of queer women of colour in pop culture. I am influenced by queer zinesters of colour like Shotgun Seamstress, feminist and critical race scholars, as well as female comic book artists of colour like Lynda Barry and Jillian Tamaki. I am committed to adding to the archive of feminist artists and illustrators. Making art is also a healing process for me, as a survivor, and allows me to share my narrative in an honest way.
E: How do you use your art to deal with feminist issues?
HC: I identify as a survivor, a queer person and a person of colour, which informs my creative practice and the work that I am passionate about making. My creative work centers on my experiences navigating mental health, queerness, healing and racism as a young woman of colour.
E: What does it mean to be a feminist in today’s society?
HC: To be a feminist in today’s society is to understand the complexities of what it means to be a woman in this world. To be a feminist is to recognize how all systems of power–such as racism, ableism, classism, cis-sexism and colonization–are interconnected and work to sustain each other. Feminism to me works in solidarity with other movements and centers the voices of racialized women and trans women.
E: Can you see yourself producing art without a feminist twist or are the two inseparable in your mind?
HC: To be a queer woman of colour creating art in a white-dominated male art scene inherently makes my art feminist. In a culture that is trying to silence survivors, to simply create and put my work out there is a political practice in itself, which I see to be feminist.
You can find more of Cho’s work at heidichomakesart.bigcartel.com and heidicho.tumblr.com. Cho will also be participating in GUTS magazine’s GUTS Does the Internet happening this Friday at 9 p.m. at 360 Geary Lane.
