Interview with Kim Sandara
Interview with Kim Sandara VisArts Bresler Resident Artist interviewed by Iona Nave Griesmann. Kim Sandara is a queer, Laotian/Vietnamese artist based in Northern Virginia. In 2016 she graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art with a BFA in General Fine Arts. She makes stream-of-consciousness paintings which interpret sounds into visuals. She is currently working on a graphic novel on her coming out story and a painting series advocating for the funding to remove bombs from Laos. Although Kim’s illustrations are often narrative and her paintings are abstract, her overall focus is to encourage empathy, wonder and self-reflection. You state in your artist bio that one of your focuses during this residency is exploring your experiences as a Lao American woman. Have you discovered anything new in your practice while making work about those experiences? As I researched more on the Vietnam war and The Secret Wars, I gradually got angry about my identity, and the history I felt was hidden away from me as an American, and as a Lao person. I was trying to find my voice in sharing this history. I knew I couldn’t just start making landscapes about Laos in a land I’ve never been in. I decided to go down the route of my fine art practice being more geared towards music, and I was trying to think about where music, and my Lao identity intersected. As a child I didn’t like Lao music at all. It was kind of pushed upon me, I only heard one type of genre. My dad’s favorite music is from the 50’s before the war. It’s all very slow and sleepy to me. In my exploration of Lao music, I’ve been trying to figure out what other genres and artists are out there in the Lao diaspora. It still seems very young. There’s a huge music gap where there’s old music from the 50’s in Laos, and then suddenly there’s young native and displaced Lao people making a lot of different work. For me that’s been really big, because I feel like it’s given me a way to be a Lao American in my own way instead of having to fit this mold of what my dad presented to me. That work has helped mold how I see myself. Through that empowerment, I came up with the 270 Million Project. I am creating one painting per million bombs dropped on Laos during the Vietnam and Secret Wars. I am channeling all my processing of such a violent history and desire to contribute positively in this work. Through the sales of the project, I will be donating money to Legacies of War, a non profit that advocates for funding from Congress to remove the bombs from Laos. Some of the money will also go to COPE, a Lao non-profit which currently helps bomb accident survivors both in physical therapy, and mental therapy. #1 of 270 Ink paintings in the 270 Million Project, raising money for the removal of Bombs in Lao, and relief aid for bombing survivors. Find more about this series: https://www.kimsandara.com/270millionproject As an artist you are incredibly well rounded in different styles and mediums, working in projects from stop motion, comics, illustrations, to more recently felting . How were you able to become so well versed in so many different styles and mediums? I’m curious about a lot of different things. That’s why I changed my major in MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art) from Illustration to General Fine Arts, because I wanted to do a little bit of everything. It seems like fine arts is just painting and sculpting, but I was doing painting, illustration, graphic design and animation. I continued that mindset through life, learning what peaks your interest. I think being well rounded is also a survival-mode immigrant mentality. You have to be willing to do different kinds of jobs to keep yourself afloat. The skills I have do not always make me money, but it does help me mentally. Being able to do a lot of different things helps keep myself interested. The felting definitely was a weird hidden talent. Find more about Kim Sandara’s felt work at: https://www.instagram.com/kimthediamond/ I try to capitalize where I can to keep myself afloat and to expand my practice. But I never do it from a standpoint of “I’m going to learn this to make money,” it’s always something like “Oh I’ve learned this, I can make money off of it!”. I have to enjoy it first before I decide to capitalize or do commissions, because what’s the point of working for yourself if you’re not enjoying it? How did you discover your process of interpreting sound into visual abstractions? did this style branch off from a previous style, or was it more spontaneous and natural? I think music has always affected me in a way that I couldn’t quite express yet. I’m such a daydreamer, and I always get very wrapped up into what I am listening to, so I think that was always in me. I really found this way of creating in college. I had a teacher who was trying a bunch of different things to poke at the freshman, to see what kinds of things were within you. One of his assignments was to bring a lot of paper to a six hour long studio day, and then to listen to music and draw to see if anything came from it. For some people it was a very boring day. For me, I was really invigorated! It felt good to use my body as a vessel, to have these subconscious reactions to sound that I never freely let myself do before. Letting go felt good, and I wanted to see where it would go. I actually finished drawing all over a fifty foot scroll of paper, and it was such an interesting experiment. It became a little mural, and I was like, “wow! I have a lot