Please join us, the National Hellenic Museum, and the Japanese American Service Committee (JASC) for an exciting program, Stories That Travel: Mythology, Folklore, & Diaspora. This panel discussion seeks to explore the varied relationships different diaspora communities have with the mythological & folklore stories of their culture of origin. We will interrogate the ways in which different communities invest in or distance themselves from their ancient mythology and folklore in the American Diaspora, and how those relationships have shifted over time.
This program is a part of the Chicago Cultural Alliance (CCA)’s Journey Chicago Festival.
Our Panel
Anna Cai (they/them) is a queer Indonesian Chinese American community-driven artist currently living in Chicago who explores the futurities of Asian diasporic identity through relationships, textiles, costume, performance, film, graphic design, and print media. At the center of their creative and social practice is a desire to steer their community into a future that embraces a transformation of fiction and reality and rejects outdated constructs of nation, gender and capital. They were a finalist in Lesotho Fashion Week of 2018 and their work in film has been selected for Lesotho Film Festival between the years of 2018-2020. Most recently they were a recipient of the 2020 New Artist Society scholarship, the 2022 Caxton Book Club grant, and Graphic Design USA’s 2022 Students to Watch Award. They are also a member of the 2022 Spring Tanda Artist Research fellowship program hosted by Chuquimarca Art Library in Chicago, Illinois.
Dr. Katherine Kelaidis is the Director of Research and Content at the National Hellenic Museum. She has held research appointments at the American University in Cairo, Oxford University, and the Free University Berlin. She is also a Senior Editor at Religion Dispatches. Dr. Kelaidis holds a B.A. in Classical Languages from the University of California, Berkeley and a Ph.D. in Classics from the University of London.
Cori Nakamura Lin a Midwest-based Japanese/Taiwanese-American illustrator and designer specializing in movement art and culture-centered storytelling. By visualizing narratives and illuminating concepts, Cori makes art that fuels action. Some current projects include illustrating curriculum covering Japanese American Resettlement to Chicago in partnership with Katherine Nagasawa, JASC, and the JACS Grant, and illustrating Cori’s sister, Jami Nakamura Lin’s, forthcoming book The Night Parade.
Cori’s Website | Etsy | Instagram
Jami Nakamura Lin is the author of the illustrated speculative memoir The Night Parade (Mariner/HarperCollins and Scribe UK, 2023). A Catapult columnist, she’s been published in The New York Times, Electric Literature, Passages North, the anthology What God is Honored Here? (U. Minnesota Press) and other publications. She received a 2016 National Endowment of the Arts and the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission, and a 2015 Walter Dean Myers Grant from We Need Diverse Books. Her work interrogates mythology, monstrosity, mental illness, and motherhood.
Jami’s Website | Book updates/newsletter | Instagram | Twitter
Moderator: Cairo Dye, NHM Programs & Events Manager
Date: Thursday, October 27, 2022
Time: 6:30pm CT
Venue: National Hellenic Museum
Address: 333 South Halsted St, Chicago, IL 60661
Tickets: $8 (FREE for students, elders, and members of CAMOC, JASC, & NHM)
TICKETS HERE