Visual Communications

For the article about communication through a visual aid, see Visual communication.
Visual Communications
Founded1970
FounderRobert A. Nakamura, Duane Kubo, Eddie Wong, Alan Ohashi
TypeMedia Arts
FocusAsian Pacific American community
Location
  • Los Angeles, California
Websitewww.vconline.org

Visual Communications (also known as VC) –– is a community-based non-profit media arts organization based in Los Angeles. It was founded in 1970 by independent filmmakers Robert Nakamura, Alan Ohashi, Eddie Wong, and Duane Kubo, who were students of EthnoCommunications, an alternative film school at University of California, Los Angeles.[1][2] The mission of VC is to "promote intercultural understanding through the creation, presentation, preservation and support of media works by and about Asian Pacific Americans."[3]

Visual Communications works to achieve this mission by creating learning kits, photographing community events, recording oral histories, and collecting historical images of Asian American life. Additionally, it has created films, video productions, community media productions, screening activities, and photographic exhibits and publications.[4] VC also annually presents the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, the leading showcase for Asian Pacific American and Asian international cinema in Southern California,[5] and maintains an archive of Asian Pacific American still and moving image holdings.[6]

  1. ^ Jun Okada (2009). ""Noble and Uplifting and Boring as Hell": Asian American Film and Video, 1971–1982". Cinema Journal. 49 (1): 20–40. doi:10.1353/cj.0.0156. ISSN 1527-2087. S2CID 144379786.
  2. ^ Leong, Russell. (1991). Moving the image : independent Asian Pacific American media arts. UCLA Asian American Studies Center and Visual Communications, Southern California Asian American Studies Central. pp. 3. ISBN 0-934052-13-1. OCLC 24843652.
  3. ^ "Visual Communications, the Asian American independent media arts center and collective based in the Little Tokyo area of Los Angeles is sponsoring two ongoing screening programs, 'The Monthly Screen' and 'Monday Nite VC' in addition to its annual Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival." Cinema Journal, vol. 45, no. 4, 2006, p. 128+. Gale Academic Onefile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A160419123/AONE?u=umuser&sid=AONE&xid=9bc9a7ec . Accessed 24 Nov. 2019.
  4. ^ "Mission and History". Visual Communications. Retrieved 2013-10-21.
  5. ^ "38th Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival | Japanese American National Museum". www.janm.org. Retrieved 2022-07-14.
  6. ^ Visual Communications, About Us, Mission & History, http://www.vconline.org/alpha/cms/default/index.cfm/about-us/mission-history/