“What is your name?”
This is the first question people always ask when meeting someone for the first time. A name is a carrier that represents a person; it is a projection of expectation, and a reflection of the society, culture, and politics of the times. When a name is used at a certain time and place, it determines how the person appears in, relates to, and belongs to that community.
In What Is Your Name? Part I, six artists explore the meaning of names for themselves or their loved ones through various media.
Using digital print, James Dingman shares how he feels disconnected to his name because of the constant name change, but cherishes his middle name that he got from his grandmother. Yijo Shen documents the Tibetan American children. By asking their names and a series of questions, the portraits and the videos show how Tibetan American children identify themselves as second-generation immigrants. Through digital print and audio, Ring Yuqi Yang talks about how the different names they have used over the course of their life segmented their identity, and how they decided to piece themselves back by searching for a name. Yixian Jin investigates through a series of photographs various nicknames she was given in a patriarchal and misogynistic society; questions the definition of “femininity;” and how these names influenced her behavior. Eliza Tan sketches her grandmother, describing how her grandmother’s life was imprisoned by a name that carries gender inequality that was broadly used in the past. Additionally, the members in the Hip Hop Incubator sing out each of their names and how their names have shaped their identity through music. Their live performance will be held on April 29th in Phillips Hall B120.
A name humanizes the individual. It is identity, it is self. What about you? What is your name?

*陳詠昕 is my birth name. It means “singing as the sun rises”.