Join us for a casual conversation over boba with artist Kenneth Tam and executive director and curator at Ballroom Marfa, Daisy Nam. This event is in conjunction with the film screening of Kenneth Tam’s Silent Spikes on November 9, as well as the exhibition Kenneth Tam: All of M, on view at the Cantor Arts Center through November 12, 2023. All of M re-stages the high school prom—often understood as a rite of passage in the transition to adulthood—as a vehicle for examining the affective spaces created by men in groups and how men perform their identities in spaces of social ritual.

Kenneth Tam works with video, sculpture, installation, movement, performance, and photography. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, he examines themes including the performance of masculinity, the transformative potential of ritual, and expressions of intimacy within groups. Tam often implicates the male body in his projects, using humor and pathos to reveal the performative and unstable nature of identity, and often creates situations that foreground tenderness and vulnerability within unlikely settings.

Daisy Nam is the executive director and curator at Ballroom Marfa, a contemporary art space located in Far West Texas dedicated to supporting artists through residencies, commissions, exhibitions, and performances. Previously from 2015–19, she was the assistant director at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University. She co-edited a publication, Best! Letters from Asian Americans in the arts with Paper Monument in 2021.

This event is open to Stanford students only. Boba is limited to the first 20 RSVPs.

Registration link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfTvqia7DCAVqvTeyBwuEA_vB6tqJqw_E6rS1eOMX71J4Mjaw/viewform

Accessibility Information or Requests: Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University is committed to ensuring our programs are accessible to everyone. To request access information and/or accommodations for this event, please complete this form at least one week prior to the event: museum.stanford.edu/access. 

For questions, please contact disability.access@stanford.edu or Alyssa Diaz, alydiaz@stanford.edu, (650) 736-9371.

Photo: Photo of Kenneth Tam by Christian Carroll. Photo of Daisy Nam by Makenzie Goodman