The ‘Stand In’ as a Strategy for Solidarity

What forms of transracial solidarity can be gleaned from the cultural legacies of Black, African and Asian diasporas that extend across North, South America and the Caribbean? New cultural forms and expressions emerged from the movement of indentured labor from Asia, including southern China, following the emancipation and transition of African labor under colonial, then revolutionary, independent, and finally globalized governance. In the present, how are the resulting cultures and identities further transformed through contemporary migratory flows or the reconfigured and reinforced borders that flatten diasporas and members of the global south as a monolithic, feared and misunderstood stand-in for “other”? On the flipside, how have artists and activists turned the neo-liberal and colonial instrumentalization of “stand-In” into a departure point for empathy, coalition-building and solidarity?





We are co-curators of the forthcoming exhibition and publication, “The Condition of Being Near,” to be produced and presented at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) University of Pennsylvania in 2026. This paper will introduce the general theme of the exhibition by unpacking its central term “stand-in” in its historico-conceptual and material-cultural "acupuncture points” through discussions of selected artworks. Denise Ryner is Andrea B. Laporte Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania; Zairong Xiang is Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and Director of Arts at Duke Kunshan University.