ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author begins by sketching out the contexts of "Asian America" and Soviet-era Estonia, admittedly strange bedfellows, with respect to homophobia. He casts a gaze across the globe to consider artistic practices that suggest novel methods of addressing the gaps in material culture, or the complete erasure of the subjectivity of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, and intersexual (LGBTQI)-identified individuals in archives. The author considers San Francisco, California-based Tina Takemoto's video Looking for Jiro alongside Tallinn, Estonia-based Jaanus Samma's installation Not Suitable for Work: A Chairman's Tale. There is often a dearth of material culture of women as well as minorities in the few LGBTQI archives that are extant. The author discusses lesbian-identified Asian American artist Tina Takemoto's artwork that engages with the modest archives of a gay Asian American man she did not know: Jiro Onuma. He also considers how Tina Takemoto productively creates new collectivities that are not gender-specific.
