Meet a VC Intern: Kathy Ou

Learn more about one of our 2022 VC Summer Interns Kathy Ou, our Development & Communications Intern!

Tell us a little bit about yourself.
My name is Kathy (she/her), or Kejun as on my passport. I’m a native Southern Chinese born and raised, spending most of my life in Shenzhen until moving to Los Angeles in 2018 to attend college. I recently graduated from Occidental College in Philosophy, and Media, Arts & Culture; and then moved to the Chinatown area with two friends. I love watching films, walking around LA neighborhoods to watch films, watching and talking to people. 

 How did you hear about Visual Communications and what drew you to apply?
I first learned of VC while browsing through the list of organizations participating in an internship program offered by my school at the time. It was spring 2020 and I was a rising junior. Interested in media and media arts but unsure of the type of work or workplace I want to engage in, VC immediately captured my attention and became my top choice for its community-based media programming and extensive work and history in the Asian Pacific American community. I applied and interviewed with Francis and Rachelle — who was the former Strategic Partnerships Director — but not long after, the whole program was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, I have subscribed to the VC newsletter, followed programming updates, attended many screenings during the past two Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festivals and had a good time. The sense of close community and genuine care and curiosity people had for each other as filmmakers, artists and just people, which I have observed at the festivals and through people who I have interacted with and who were affiliated with VC in different ways, was something I didn’t remember last experiencing and what further convinced me VC may be a place I want to be. Therefore, when I saw internship opportunities open up through its social media in spring, I immediately started working on my application. When I learned I was selected — two years after my first attempt — it truly felt like a full circle for me.

What are your duties at VC? Which part(s) do you find most interesting?
For development, my work includes administrative duties that ensure the correct recording and cataloging of all donations in our databases, developing new funding opportunities, document preparations in support of grant applications, and gratitude practices. For communications, I organized content and posted for VC’s website, social media and newsletter to maintain our digital presence and online engagement. I also worked closely with staff from other departments such as Programs and Archives to develop event/program-specific marketing strategies or narrative.

The part of my work I find most interesting involves working with the Archives. Sometimes when I was working on a blog or social media post to highlight a project or a person, I would ask Jason, our Archives Coordinator, for relevant photos deep in our VC archives. Getting to see those photos would always inspire my curiosity and gave me opportunities to learn more about both VC’s history and the Asian American history, which by the way I have never had any formal education in. The Archives is truly a gem and source of inspiration. 

How do you describe your experience working at VC so far? Any memorable moments?
My experience at VC has been challenging and renewing. As my first full time and post-college job, my work at VC differs greatly from all my previous work experiences. The staff here are supportive and deeply care about your own personal and professional development. I was constantly and necessarily reminded and asked to reflect on myself as a person with needs, and how VC can provide the material or relational resources for me to grow and flourish. There is little bureaucracy and lots of room to experiment, to try and err and try again, which has very much helped me discover my strengths as well as shortcomings, interests and priorities. There is a deep sense of community and culture of care and interdependence at VC’s workplace, which has excited and sustained me and which I’m still learning about its full meaning in practice. 

There are so many memorable moments, lots of which are connected to VC’s ties with the community they serve and is a part of. For example, on my second or third week, Francis took me and another staff member to a sake and food tasting event organized by the LTSC at JACCC. It was also a fundraiser event and the event was packed. I was pleased by the good food and sake from local restaurants and stores, of course, but more so I was excited to see Francis and Jason greeting and interacting with many others who know them personally or are friends of VC. Similarly, there were other times I was walking on Little Tokyo with other staff members that we often ran into and stopped to chat with people we know including filmmakers we support or former VC staff still living and hanging out in the community. I appreciate opportunities like these to get to learn about VC in a variety of spaces and be connected with the people and environment we work for and with. 

Describe what a perfect day would look like for you. What do you do for rest? 
This is a harder question than I first thought. I still have difficulties demarcating rest from work and vice versa, but during after work hours, I like to jog near my neighborhood, do home workout, catch up on saved articles and films and sometimes shows, and take public transit to downtown areas on weekends to hang out with friends or by myself. My current biggest obsession and activity for rest is binging on Street Dance of China Season 5. Besides the beauty, energy and technicality of the dances, t’s really like watching a multicultural utopia with the many top-notch dancers from all over the world performing together on stage. Highly recommend and definitely made me want to dance again.

Who is Kathy?
Kathy came from a loving family. Both of her parents came from large families in a third-tier city and were the only ones in their respective families to leave and migrate to the more urbanized Shenzhen. They were generous and liberal enough to not only sponsor Kathy’s private international high school experience but also her college education in the US and a degree in the humanities. Kathy cannot be who or where she is today without her parents, and wants to be happy and healthy for them, and also contributive to the local and international communities she is connected to. She is glad to have met and be guided by a group of like-minded friends dispersed in North America and China in finding a more stable and collective identity. 

Chilling outside the building housing the philosophy department at Occidental College

Kathy does not like to think about identity but believes it’s useful and sometimes important in building relationships and communities. She tends to think conceptually in abstractions and really likes the analogy of all live or inanimate beings in the world interconnected as in a massive web of evolving relationships in indigenous philosophy. She often needs other people to help ground her and is grateful to have herself currently surrounded by passionate and caring friends, colleagues and community members and organizers. 

Professionally, Kathy wants to pursue the direction of nonfiction storytelling. She has done many random things and has many “failed” hobbies, but her primary mediums include writing and photography. She hopes to find a way to continue growing as a scholar, organizer and artist, altogether.

Strolling in my neighborhood around mid-autumn festival this year in my neighborhood

Deliciously spicy banh mi at an organizer retreat at Alpine Park in Los Angeles Chinatown

a weekly video call/virtual study room with friends