Looking and Seeing/Seeing and Looking

Reviews / Votes

"If Book of the Other: small in comparison, was Tran's navigation through the darkest part of the forest, Looking and Seeing is the continuation of the map in the ongoing case study to bring one's existence to the forefront in communication with whiteness. Tran transitions his proximity to whiteness, showcasing the progression of one's positionality within his ongoing journey in self-proclamation. In this book, we gain a more intimate understanding of the intention of the other. I made this art for you not in the hopes that you will hang it on your wall but in the sense that you will hold its consciousness that you will see yourself as others see you as question as subject as metaphor as conflict that art as human is conflicted and confronted. Tran requires us to sit with his examinations, with his witnessings, his confrontations, and his consciousness. we look, but Tran reiterates 'do we see?' and if seeing was the precursor to understanding, what can you do to shift your positionality in the ongoing struggle against whiteness as a threat? whiteness as inherent. whiteness as the standard. whiteness as the goal. whiteness as dominance. Whiteness as foe. whiteness as illness. whiteness as dismally & unimpressively; whiteness. by taking on this joint project with Potter, Tran showcases the possibility and intimacy of engaging with whiteness without the doldrums of performance. placing brown and white together on a conversational canvas to enrich the complexity of solidarity and truth."
-- Mimi Tempestt, author of "the delicacy of embracing spirals" "Tran's newest book is a new kind of contraption, a language chamber that splits the infinities of Belonging and Accountability (and Rage, and Memory, and many other concepts besides) into the refracted light that is the Poem in its most beautiful and affecting shape: the form of survival. I always applaud Tran's bravery in the face of this world we molded out of chingazos, vast and unruly. This book screams and bites and protects all the people who think of themselves as the smallest dot." -- Raul Ruiz, author of "Mustard"