Evening Talk: Border Control, Asian Racialization, and the Visual Document
Feng-Mei Heberer (New York University)

Wednesday, 07.01.2026 I 18:00 – 19:30 Seminar Building (106), Room S01

This talk examines visual documentation and the documentary form in their intimate connection with racialized state surveillance and border control in the United States. It discusses the ways that visual documents such as the headshot have been wielded on behalf of national immigration policies to contain border crossings since the 19th century, and explores the underexamined yet critical relation between state documentation and historical processes of Asian racialization. Against this backdrop, I turn to the ongoing work of Miko Revereza, a Philippine-born artist and self-ascribed “undocumented-documentary filmmaker,” whose work introduces the powerful potential of fugitive, errant, and ephemeral visual forms. In close conversation with Revereza’s work, I examine how moving images in particular might attune us to documentation’s violent history and offer practices of visualization outside the demand to capture and deport.

Masterclass: Toward a Feminist Diasporic Media Method
with Feng-Mei Heberer (New York University)

Thursday, 08.01.2026 I 10:00 -11:30h Seminar Building (106), Conference Room (Tagungsraum) 0.04

On-demandness is a defining feature of digital media. It manifests in the often taken-for-granted expectation of instant accessibility and nonstop service. This masterclass features feminist media practices from the Asian diaspora, from onscreen performance to on-set production, to explore how on-demandness is also key to the imperial legacy of Asian gendered racialization. In dialog with select media works by Asian diasporans, we’ll ask how to reframe the function of digital media in ways that intervene in often violently neutralizing discourses and theories of digitality. Through shared reading, a lecture, in-class discussion and activity, we’ll explore how a feminist diasporic media method can help us theorize media in ways that bring back marginalized histories and lived experiences, including forms of resistance, sabotage, and community-building.

Please submit your application for the masterclass by email to info-memo@uni-koeln.de., you will then receive a confirmation email along with a preparatory text.