I think if I didn't have a social component to my work, if I didn't feel that my work was raising

awareness or trying to help heal a sick society, I don't know if I do it, to be honest. I don't know, I think that that's why I do it.

Yeah, I don't think I've ever made a piece that's just for any other reason I think that there's always it's

either healing for myself or it's healing for others is the intention.

That was artist Thomas Chung. Thomas says that he's always been interested in art, even as a child, but that as he got older, it became

a means of self-preservation.

His upbringing was marked by racism and homophobia, and art allowed him to express the emotions

he didn't consciously understand at the time. Those emotions he would later realize focused

on cultural awareness and compassion,

and would come to define much of his professional art.

In addition to being an artist, Thomas is also an assistant professor of art

at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

There he continues to champion diversity, equity, and inclusivity.

So here he is, Thomas Chung.

Welcome to Chattermarks. A podcast of the Anchorage Museum,

dedicated to exploring Alaska's identity

through the creative and critical thinking of ideas, past, present, and future.

My name is Cody Liska and I'll be your host. So I did some internet sloothing and one thing that stuck out to me was that you've moved around a lot.

You were born in New Jersey, you grew up in New York, and in Hong Kong,

and you went to college at the San Francisco Art Institute and then at Yale.

Was all that moving around a symptom of necessity or was there another reason?

Yes, it was a symptom of necessity.

...