USC PAM presents exhibited artists Ken Lum and Jennifer Ling Datchuk from Another Beautiful Country as they discuss their work in an intimate gallery conversation. Drawing from the Chinese translation of America, (美國/měiguó) and the American-born Chinese abbreviation, ABC, Another Beautiful Country, features artworks that portray nuanced interplays between Chinese American identities and representations, challenging conventional notions of nationhood. Resisting stereotypes and globalization’s dehumanizing aspects, Another Beautiful Country brings together artworks as scenes of cross-cultural sharing.

Free with cost of admission

RSVP recommended

More about the Artists:

Jennifer Ling Datchuk /玲

Jennifer Ling Datchuk was born in Warren, Ohio and raised in Brooklyn, New York. Her work is an exploration of her layered identity – as a woman, a Chinese woman, as an “American,”and as a third culture kid. Trained in ceramics, Datchuk works with porcelain and other materials often associated with traditional women’s work, such as textiles and hair, to discuss fragility, beauty, femininity, intersectionality, identity, and personal history. Through these materials, she explores how Western beauty standards influenced the East, how the non-white body is commodified and sold, and how women’s – globally, girls’ – work is still a major economic driver whose workers still struggle for equality. Datchuk holds an MFA in Artisanry from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and a BFA in Crafts from Kent State University. In 2017, she received the Emerging Voices award from the American Craft Council, and in 2020 was named a United States Artist Fellow in Craft. Her work is in the collections at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, San Antonio Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. She is an Assistant Professor of Ceramics at Arizona State University and lives and maintains a studio practice in Phoenix, Arizona.

Ken Lum / 林蔭庭

Ken Lum is an artist with an international exhibition record that includes Documenta, the Venice Biennale, Sao Paolo Bienal, Shanghai Biennale, Gwangju Biennale, Carnegie Triennial and the Whitney Biennial. He is co-founder and founding editor of the Yishu Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art. He is a prolific writer and has given 6 keynote addresses including the 2022 congress of the International Association of Empirical Aesthetics in Philadelphia. A book of his writings titled Everything is Relevant: Writings on Art and Life 1991 – 2018 was published in 2020 by Concordia University Press. In 2020, he wrote a screenplay titled The Cook about Chinese contract laborers in the 19th century. In 2021, he penned a second screenplay about the forced expulsion of Chinese from Tacoma, Washington Territory in 1885. Lum has realized numerous permanent public art commissions, including co-curating Shanghai Modern: 1919 – 1945. A long-time professor, Lum is currently the Marilyn Jordan Taylor Presidential Professor and Chair of the Department of Fine Arts, Stuart Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania.