Visual Communications (VC)
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| Founded | 1970 |
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| Founder | Robert A. Nakamura, Duane Kubo, Eddie Wong, Alan Ohashi |
| Type | Media Arts |
| Focus | Asian Pacific American community |
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| Website | www.vconline.org |
Visual Communications (also known as VC) –– is a community-based non-profit media arts organization based in Los Angeles and founded in 1970 by independent filmmakers Robert Nakamura, Alan Ohashi, Eddie Wong, and Duane Kubo. Fueled by the Civil Rights and Anti-War movements, they set out creating learning kits, photographing community events, recording oral histories, and collecting historical images of Asian American life. Additionally, they created films, video productions, community media productions, screening activities, and photographic exhibits and publications.
VC originally worked as a film collective, concentrating on portraying accurate images of Asian Americans and capturing social movements. In the 1970s and 80s, VC took on several projects in the independent film production arena. That first period saw the creation of over fifty productions, including works about the Asian American experience, such as: CHINATOWN 2-STEP, a documentary on the suburbanization of Chinese American community in Los Angeles and the role of the Chinatown Drum and Bugle Corps; MANONG, a film on the first generation Filipino American immigrants; and WATARIDORI, a documentary on early Japanese American immigrant pioneers. VC published three books, In Movement: A Pictorial History of Asian Pacific America, Little Tokyo: One Hundred Years in Pictures, and Moving the Image: Independent Asian Pacific American Media Arts.
In the 1990s, VC transitioned from a film production collective to a media arts center. The organization provided support services like workshops and trainings for Asian American artists, filmmakers, and community members, as well as presentation opportunities for independent media. VC currently offers production and training in filmmaking, video and photography for Asian Americans. VC presents the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival annually and maintains an archives of Asian Pacific American still and moving image holdings.
To promote intercultural understanding through the creation, presentation, preservation and support of media works by and about Asian Pacific Americans. VC was created with the understanding that media and the arts are important vehicles to organize and empower communities, build connections between generations, challenge perspectives, and create an environment for critical thinking, necessary to build a more just and humane society.
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