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. 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." Visual Communications created learning kits, photographed community events, recorded oral histories, and collected historical images of Asian American life. Additionally, it created films, video productions, community media productions, screening activities, and photographic exhibits and publications.
In 1970, Nakamura, Ohashi, Wong, and Kubo, who were influenced by the civil rights and anti-war movements, produced a photographic exhibit on Japanese American internment as VC's first project. In 1971, VC became an independent non-profit organization, which allowed it to receive funding for its programs through the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA), Emergency School Aid Act (ESAA), and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). VC helped create over fifty independent film productions in the 70s and 80s, including Chinatown 2-Step, a documentary on the suburbanization of Chinese American community in Los Angeles and the role of the Chinatown Drum and Bugle Corps; Manong, a film on the first generation Filipino American immigrants; and Wataridori, a documentary on early Japanese American immigrant pioneers. VC published three books, In Movement: A Pictorial History of Asian Pacific America, Little Tokyo: One Hundred Years in Pictures, and Moving the Image: Independent Asian Pacific American Media Arts.
In the 1990s, VC transitioned from a film production collective to a media arts center. The organization provided support services like workshops and trainings for Asian American artists, filmmakers, and community members, as well as presentation opportunities for independent media. VC currently offers production and training in filmmaking, video and photography for Asian Americans. VC presents the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival annually and maintains an archive of Asian Pacific American still and moving image holdings.
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