UC Irvine

This dissertation analyzes a selection of photomontages by contemporary artists Tomie Arai (b. 1949-), Yong Soon Min (b. 1953-), and Ann Le (b. 1981-) that reimagine 20th-century U.S. wars and militarism in the Asia Pacific Arena. These artists use forms of collage to look back on the Cold War and to disrupt U.S. Cold War historical narratives of U.S. rescue and liberation of Asia. Using feminist epistemological approaches, they reveal diasporic memories of survival, resistance, and futurity. Their artworks reinterpret and reclaim public and private photographs through the artistic strategy of photomontage, which entails the juxtaposition and reconfiguration of photographic materials. I argue that Arai’s, Min’s, and Le’s artworks serve as alternative sites of remembrance that critique the Japanese American incarceration during World War II and U.S. militarism in Asia during the Cold War, Korean War, and the Vietnam War. In this project, I offer the concept of “ethical memory works” to describe how such Asian diasporic cultural productions engage in the complex politics of memory and the ethics of care - for the past, one’s community, and other communities. I suggest ethical memory works are defined by ethical remembering, speculative storytelling, and feminist acts of care.