the tidal flats
a doumentary-collage on east asian american queer kinship
“tidal flats: level muddy surface bordering an estuary, alternately submerged and exposed to the air by [cycling], changing tidal levels.“
— Encyclopedia Britannica
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This audio doumentary-collage was written, produced, and performed by liú, a queer and trans non-binary, disabled, mixed race nerd.
Their service dog, Desmond, also “helps.”
[Image description: a mixed-race Asian person with short, dark brown hair and Clark-Kent-style glasses is taking a selfie in front of the Brooklyn Public Library. They are in their wheelchair, and a black standard poodle is perched on their lap, looking off to the left with a very engaged expression.]
When this project began, Liú intended to make an oral history-based audio documentary in honor of their Taiwanese grandmother. Struggling with their grandmother’s failing health and the limitations of oral history— When we encounter overwhelming silence, how do we record those silences we find in a way that honors everything that they signify?—Liú settled on probing questions of power within familial storytelling. But what surfaced from their interviews with four other queer and trans Asian Americans was more visceral and embodied…