LACA

Collection Description: Private Practices is a collection developed alongside curator Coco Ono, co-producer of Sacred Wounds, which highlights healing-focused celebrations of Asian perspectives through erotic ritual. The collection that LACA and Ono have established is a living collection, meaning that items—such as screenshots, paystubs, apparel, set pieces, police reports, text messages, and other ephemera pertinent to sexual labor—will be added on an ongoing basis. The March 16th 2021 shooting spree that targeted Asian women in Atlanta Georgia is a stark reminder of the systemic misogyny that minimizes racial violence in the United States. In LACA’s shared neighborhood of Chinatown, we have seen firsthand a notable expansion of police presence. We are mindful that the securitization of our neighborhoods is not the answer to the entrenched systemic misogyny and racism that pervades our country. Private Practices asks how artists, archives, and Chinatown community members can effectively collect together. This collection address anti-Asian violence by locating it narrowly in the experience of AAPI sex workers. We believe that by amplifying some of these voices, Private Practices can draw into focus how racism toward Asian bodies can be marked by a uniquely sexual register.

Scope and Content: The collection is organized by the contributors names. These include Kayla Tange (Coco Ono), Mariko Passion, Emily Christine Velez Nelms, Lola Chan, Wang Newton, Kim Ye (Mistress Lucy), Riv, and Mutant Salon. 

Restrictions: Some items in this collection can only be accessed in person at the Los Angeles Contemporary Archive (LACA) and are not available online. Donors have sometimes chosen to be organized under their stage name or anonymously.