An immigrant from Taiwan, JuPong Lin works at the nexus of art and politics, culture and nature, human and fungal. As an artist-researcher, decolonial and institutional activist and educator, she enjoys finding links (metaphoric mycorrhiza) between communities, institutions, and ecotones, to enhance connections that foster personal and community resilience. Her community performance, media and installation art aspires to incite systemic change through creating relationships of mutuality and reciprocity. In collaboration with the MFAIA faculty, JuPong co-founded the Indigenous and Decolonial Art concentration which calls for all artists to examine the impact of colonization on the collective consciousness of imperialism and work to dismantle settler colonial states. With collaborator, Devora Neumark, JuPong is the co-founder of Fierce Bellies, an artist collective that “envisions the mainstreaming of climate justice through joyful art practice. We engage transnational feminism to cultivate a blend of mindfulness, activism and radical aesthetics to foster transformational change and critique of the injustice of the colonial carbon economy.” In her hometown of Amherst, Massachusetts, JuPong cooperates with food justice and social justice activists to start a co-operative grocery store and community hub for food sovereignty.

Education

MFA in Intermedia, University of Iowa
BA in Comparative Literature, Indiana. University

Areas of Expertise

• Interdisciplinary Art
• Social Practice
• Video Performance
• Ecojustice and Sustainability Education
• International Feminism
• Decolonial Ecocriticism

Personal Statement

Stories feed me. Words sing to me, images enthrall me, and music inspires me. I see myself as a conduit for the stories that need to be told; I make community by knitting together stories of many voices. My questions revolve around relationships between human and the more-than-human. I explore these questions from my evolving identities—as a feminist, mother, sister, and daughter; as an immigrant resistor of assimilation; as a student of decolonization, postcolonial and indigenous cultures; as an activist-researcher in solidarity with the global climate justice movement. We are in a crisis of existence—the destruction of the earth, the massive loss of millions of species and potentially the end of our own species, brought about by the fragmented and failing systems that humans have created in the name of “progress.” Crisis is the context in which my current inquiry emerged, inspired by viewing the BBC TV series, Doctor Who, with my teen-aged son. Sitting with him, I wondered, how might we experience sci-fi and cli-fi as conjuring devices or objects of imagination? Can viewing in companionship help us collectively envision new ways of living and loving, regenerative webs of caring and obligation? I am currently working on a PhD in Environmental Studies at Antioch University New England, developing ways of cultivating intergenerational forms of audiencing science fiction and collectively re-storying our beloved places.