Performing Asia in the Nordic Sea and the Queerness of its Tensions

Performing Asia in the Nordic Sea and the Queerness of its Tensions

How can we locate Asia in the Nordics? With Lap-See Lam’s film installation The Altersea Opera — a 2024 representative of the Nordic Pavilion at the Venice Biennale — I reflect on the cultural making of Asianness in a Nordic context and its queer politics. Asian artists from the Nordic region and beyond collaborated to create a diasporic tale of Asia, at once tangible yet sensually fantastical. Thinking through spaces such as Drottningsholm’s Kina Slott and Sweden’s first Chinese restaurants, enduring fascination towards Asia often survives critiques against its fallacy, where myths of authenticity fuel desire instead of frustrating it. Instead, Lam’s artwork presents a queer tale of Asian Nordics, defying compulsions to locate where Asia is — whether within its geographic borders or in racialized bodies — in order to navigate how Asia operates through the tensions between the real and the mythical. 

Bio

Jessie Yoon (they/them) is a PhD candidate in Performing and Media Arts as well as in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Cornell University, USA. Yoon researches queer/trans representation of Asianness in a contemporary and transnational cultural productions. 

Crip & Queer Seminar Series autumn 2025

Violence, representation and radical change 

The Crip & Queer Seminar series is hosted by the Division of Gender Studies. During the fall term of 2025, the theme of the series is Violence, representation and radical change. After the seminars, which are open to students, staff, and the general public, we serve fika in the kitchen on the fourth floor of Gamla Lungkliniken. 

Warmly welcome!

Contact:  

• Elin Lundell elin [dot] lundell [at] genus [dot] lu [dot] se (elin[dot]lundell[at]genus[dot]lu[dot]se)  
• Irina Schmitt irina [dot] schmitt [at] genus [dot] lu [dot] se (irina[dot]schmitt[at]genus[dot]lu[dot]se)