 "Photo: Thomas Lee/The Daily Northwestern")
 "Photo: Thomas Lee/The Daily Northwestern")
Korean-born artist Nikki S. Lee has posed as a lesbian, a yuppie, a punk, a drag queen and an exotic dancer.
But Lee doesn't just play dress up; she becomes integrated into the community by assuming different identities through performance, costuming, gesture, behavior and impersonation.
A self-described "assimilartist," Lee breezed through a series of photographic slides Thursday night during her presentation "Parts and Projects," addressing an audience of more than 150 people in the Block Museum of Art auditorium. The event, sponsored by the Program in Gender Studies' Leslie A. Hoffman Colloquium, examined the creation of identity.
The event name comes from two of Lee's works: the "Projects" series, in which Lee poses with members of different communities, and the "Parts" series, in which she poses with cutouts of male figures, allowing readers to create their own narrative about Lee's identity.
In one photograph from "Projects," Lee sports black leather and chains; in another, she wears pearls and a business suit. For the "Hip Hop Project," she went to the tanning salon three times a week to darken her skin tone. During her "Seniors Project," Lee said people in the community believed she actually had a grandchild in Korea.
"When you look at her photos, you kind of play the 'Where's Waldo?' game," said Weinberg senior Corey Robinson, co-chairman of the undergraduate committee that helped plan the event. He said Lee's photographs force audiences to find the person who does not "naturally" belong.
"She really complicates that idea because you can't really tell who the 'passer' is," Robinson said.
But Lee said she is aware of her own personality in the photos.
"My goal is not to become black, white or Hispanic," Lee said. "It's more like becoming an Asian person who really likes that culture."
Lee came to the United States in 1994 after graduating from the University of Korea. She studied at the Fashion Institute of Technology, and she earned a master's degree in photography at New York University. After working as a commercial fashion photographer, Lee switched gears to pursue her own art project. She said she tries to combine the group mentality of Eastern culture with the individualistic sensibility of Western culture.
During a panel discussion between Lee and two NU professors, English Prof. Jennifer Brody called Lee's work "provocative."
"She suggests that a woman can be anything," she said.
The other panelist, gender studies Lecturer Amy Partridge, raised questions including the differences between "spectacular sub-cultures" and more "essential" identities constructed from ethnicity, class, gender and sexuality.
"Is being Hispanic the same as being a punk or a swinger?" Partridge asked.
Lee said it was interesting to hear different interpretations of her work.
"I always wanted to make work with multiple layers that people can approach from different perspectives," she said.
Noelle Ghoussaini, a Communication junior, said Lee's work is controversial because it labels people with stereotypical identities.
"Is it fair?" Ghoussaini said. "Does she get to know the people, and how does she feel about categorizing them in certain ways? - I wonder if she sees them as more than that."
When Lee showed slides of her "Ohio Project," where she posed in flip-flops, overalls and bleached blonde hair with a family from rural Ohio, Kurt Soller, a Medill sophomore, said her work could be "borderline offensive" because of its stereotypes.
But during the question and answer session, Lee said she does not see stereotypes as being negative, and she sees her own identity as being very fluid.
"People are always curious, 'Who is the real Nikki?'" she said. "You never know."
Reach Erica Schlaikjer at e-schlaikjer@northwestern.edu.
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