VINTAGE WRANGLER DENIM JACKET




My ex ripped a button from the sleeve of this jacket when he wore it. He promised he would fix it, but never came around too it. At the time, he was deeply closeted, but he was an international student that grew up on Asian tradition. It pains me to think about how his home is much more culturally homophobic because of years of colonization. In China, Homosexuality is refered to as a "cut sleeve", from a short story of how an emporer did not want to disturb his lover who was sleeping on the sleeve of his robe, so he cut it off. Often times I look at the sleeve with the missing button feeling its fabric flap against my forearm and feel a tie to this story.



RK: I know that you're also like a queer filmmaker that you've like, worked on documentaries and like, movies and stuff. Um, but what is your creative process, what is your creative process when you are like oh,this. is going to be like a queer film or like, this is going to be specifically queer.

AK: Yeah, my first couple (movies) were, and then on the first one, which was kind of it didn't really go to only like a film festival, made by students, and we didn't have much of a budget. But I think I found at that point, a need to tell stories. I got really angry when one of my films was awarded a grant from the Rhode Island Council, and they were short films, so they screened them. And I went to one and it was a straight filmmaker making a film about transgender people. And essentially, his little short film was like. Queer people, don't embrace transgender people. And I got really mad at my partner at the time we made films. were like, this is so wrong . It's so messed up, you know, we're like, we should do our own film. You know, there should be a film from a queer perspective. So part of that was just being upset about kind of people. And I'm sure this happens with all minorities. Yeah, when I did my Native American film, I've, you know, we work closely with the native people, but I'm sure they were like “they're not going to get this right” So I think that was part of that. And we were raising money in Boston, and we had a big fundraiser, and some of the people within the community are like, Oh, these are for the this is for the tranny film, so I felt even within the queer community. There was kind of misinformation too. So I think part of it was just… and I think a lot of filmmakers, artists feel that, you know, we're not really the stories that have to be told from people within the community.