WHO WE ARE
Claire Chun
Claire Chun is a Ph.D. student at the University of California, Berkeley in the Department of Ethnic Studies with a Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies. She received her B.A. in Politics and Social and Cultural Analysis from New York University. Her research is broadly interested in the triangulation of race, technology, and visual culture with a particular focus on beauty, aesthetics, diaspora, and war.
Image description: Claire is seated casually outside, perhaps at a restaurant and looks off attentively to the left of the image. We see Claire in a white button-down shirt, with a low bun.
Mariska Jung
Mariska Jung (she/her) is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at the Free University Brussels (Belgium). She graduated from the University of Amsterdam (the Netherlands) and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (UK). Prior to pursuing a PhD degree, she worked at various anti-discrimination NGOs in Europe. In 2022 she is a visiting Fulbright Schuman fellow in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies at UC Berkeley. Mariska is interested in interspecies empathy and kinship, and hopes that her work on (anti)racism, religion and animal politics in Europe will support ways to imagine a less catastrophic world for all. She thoroughly enjoys witnessing the vibrancy of non-human life while taking many, many strolls around town.
Image description: Mariska is standing upright and looks directly at the camera. She has dark brown eyes, and her mid-length hair of the same color is down. She is wearing a white, loose-fitting, and buttoned-up shirt, as well as glasses with large lenses, and a thin black rim.
Delaney Mitchell
Delaney is a PhD Student in the Department of Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley. She received her BA from the University of Alaska, MSc from the London School of Economics and LLM from the School of Oriental and African Studies. Her research encompasses a range of topics in feminist and queer theory, critical Indigenous studies, and cultural studies. Prior to joining Berkeley, she worked in public humanities and on language access and revitalization projects in Alaska. Delaney is from the Matanuska-Susitna Valley.
Image description: Delaney is standing upright in front of a wall and looks easily into the camera. She has a big smile on her face, decorated at each end with silver hoop earrings and two long braids that fall below the edge of the photo. Delaney is wearing a navy and white striped button-down shirt with adorning fabric on her shoulders.
Miguel Samano
Miguel Samano (they/them) is a Ph.D. student in English at UC Berkeley specializing in comparative U.S. multiethnic art, literature, and performance since the mid-1960s, especially Latinx, Asian American, and queer of color. Their research turns to the arts to theorize the importance of figurations of talk as a response to linguistic racism and heterosexism in the public sphere. They enjoy playing with their cat, Delicatessen Delilah Bean II, and being accoutered with their latest thrifting hauls, and long-distance runner’s legs.
Image description: Miguel is pictured from the chest up outside and looks squarely into the camera with a full smile. They are wearing a bright red and white striped button-down shirt with a rose in the left breast pocket, a brown suede jacket, and earrings to match.
Simon(e) van Saarloos
Simon(e) van Saarloos is a writer, artist and curator. They published several books, among which Playing Monogamy and Take ‘Em Down. Scattered Monuments and Queer Forgetfulness. Together with collaborator Kübra Uzun, Simon(e) created an audio installation titled Cruising Gezi Park at Amsterdam Museum, initiated a conference with a catwalk (“The Architecture of Sex”) and organizes “Through The Window”, an online queer art solidarity project between Turkey and the Netherlands. Simon(e) recently started a PhD in Rhetoric at UC Berkeley.
Image description: Simon(e) is standing upright and looks very serious, with frowning brows. They are a white person with blond short hair. They are wearing a black turtleneck and a colorful sweater with a bright print of lips, noses and eyes, Picasso clunky.
Kimberly Yu
Kimberly Yu is a PhD student in the History of Art Department who studies contemporary art with a focus on how new media visualize current conditions of capitalism and geopolitical struggles in the transpacific. Her writing and the exhibitions she has contributed to have touched on subjects such as colonial legacies in contemporary Asian and American art, gendered and racialized artistic labor, and Asian American video and performance art.
Image description: Kimberly is seated outside near a shore and looks cheerfully into the camera, the wind blowing her hair. Kimberly is wearing a soft blue turtleneck under a yellow and white checkered jacket. She accessorizes this with gold and silver necklaces and hoop earrings.