Thandi Cai

Thandi Cai (they/them) is a queer, Indonesian, Chinese American artist from the American South exploring the futurities of Asian diasporic identity through critical dialogue, textiles, performance, film, graphic design, and print media. At the core of their creative and socially engaged practice is a desire to steer the world into a future that breaks free from the oppressive colonial systems of gender binaries, nation-states and capital. The goal of their work is to arouse imagination, pleasure, and improvisation to ideate new paths forward. Cai is immersed in researching and riffing off of histories where they find themselves and other Asian Americans absent (despite their irrefutable presence) to fabulate speculative fiction in which they are centered. In 2020 Cai co-founded Meng Cheng Artist Collective in service of collective artmaking and dialogue in the Memphis community. They are currently collaborating with the Chinese Historical Society of Memphis & the Midsouth in the creation of Bluff City Chinese, a documentary about the expansive voices of the Chinese diaspora in Memphis.