Be.Coming / Be.Longing: Tennessee Asianx Artists curated by Karlota I. Contreras-Koterbay 

August 7 – September 25
Be.Coming / Be.Longing: Tennessee Asianx Artists in the Balcony Gallery
Opening reception: Friday, August 7, 5:00-9:00 PM
Gallery hours: Monday-Friday, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
The Emporium Center, 100 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902

BeComing/BeLonging explores the materiality of the self in the midst of diaspora, displacement, longing and belonging. Artists in the exhibition represent polyphony of visual voices that provide glimpse on the identities tethered to the notion of Asia and Tennessee, both as linchpins, rather than monoliths.  The complex dialogue on identity, becoming and belonging is unshrouded, foregrounding each individuals’ whisperings through creative practices.   

Curated as part of the Adapted/Adopted exhibition series that reinvestigates the construction and hybridity of self, as paved by the process of diaspora, both voluntary and imposed, like that in cases of transnational refugees, migrants and adoptees. The women in the exhibition all have Asian lineage within the embrace of American families, either as second or third generation Asian Americans, immigrants or naturalized professionals, or adopted youths, most are liminal citizens of in-between cultures.

The women in this exhibition all have Asian lineage within the embrace of American families, either as second or third generation Asian Americans, immigrants or naturalized professionals, or adopted youths, most are liminal citizens of in-between cultures. The Tennessean artists with Asian lineages features Nuveen Barwari, Sai Clayton, Sepideh Dashti, Tao Huang, Mable Ni, Sisavanh Phouthavong, Katie Wester and Meng Cheng Collective’s Thandi Cai, Lili Nacht and Yidan Zeng. 

The public is invited to meet some of the artists and curator during the opening reception on August 7, First Friday from 5 to 9 p.m., with reading by Meng Cheng Collective from their recent publication Jia Pu: Cooking Our Way Home at 5:30pm.

Curator Karlota Contreras-Koterbay, a migrant Filipinx based in Appalachia references Tennessee and Asia as places significant to identity, material grounds, unbound, fertile, and vibrant that invigorates the process of ‘becoming’ as visualized through material practice. The reference of place are not meant to geographically restrict nor culturally stereotype, but rather employed as geographic points, with permeability, mobility and mutability as nurturing grounds for hybrid and liminal identities

Karlota I. Contreras-Koterbay is the Director of ETSU’s Tipton-Ashe & Slocumb Galleries and curates and juries exhibitions nationwide and abroad. She received her B.A degree in Anthropology and M.A. Art History from University of the Philippines- Diliman. She is member of IKT International Association of Contemporary Art Curators, International Council of Museums, Southeastern College Art Conference. Contreras-Koterbay is a recipient of ETSU’s Outstanding Community Service Award (2025) and TAM Award of Excellence. She is also co-Director of Crafting Blackness Initiative, a research, publication and exhibition series advancing visibility of Black Craft artists in Tennessee.