Yuntaku Interview with Laura Kina: On Being Part of Many Universes All at Once

Laura Kina, a queer, disabled, and mixed-race Okinawan American artist and scholar, is interviewed by Cassie M. Miura. Both share Okinawan ancestry and are part of the contemporary movement to revitalize Okinawan ancestral tattoos. As a familiar form of intimate exchange, yuntaku enables Kina and Miura to reflect on Okinawan cultural identity, queer diasporic aesthetics, and Indigenous time. Their friendship, as well as Kina’s recent diagnosis with stage four cancer, gives shape and life to the conversation. Offering a retrospective look at their career and evolving sense of self, Kina considers what their work makes possible for future generations.