Kearny Street Workshop

Artist Bios | APAture 2014: Focus on Emerging Asian Pacific American Artists

By Discipline

VISUAL ARTS

VICTORIA JANG (Featured Artist) is an implant from Seattle, Washington and obtained her BFA in ceramics and sculpture at the University of Washington in 2010. She moved to the Bay Area in 2012 to begin her Masters program in ceramics and received her MFA this year at the California College of the Arts. Her work has been shown throughout the state of California and country. She has been represented in both NCECA’s National Student Juried Exhibition and California Conference for the Advancement of Ceramic Arts. She is also a recent recipient of the Headlands Graduate Fellowship Award.

DANIEL CHEN’s paintings reflect the rebelliousness of youth and the need for acceptance. He explores the themes of value and cultural consumerism through the lens of masculinity, feminine beauty, and pop culture. Through the use of pop imagery and a vivid palette, the paintings reflect notions of nostalgia, passion, and childlike play, in order to subvert undertones of aggression and sexuality.

LANA DANDAN is a first generation Lebanese-American video, photo and installation artist based in the San Francisco Bay Area, who spent her childhood in the United States and adolescence in Beirut, Lebanon. Her work has been shown at venues in Beirut, Berlin, and the Bay Area. Lana received her MFA from California College of the Arts in 2013.

SAMIRA HASHEMI is an Iranian interdisciplinary artist who lives and works in San Francisco/CA. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including Museum of Ex-Teresa Arte Actual (Mexico City, Mexico), Parramasala Media Festival (Sydney, Australia), Fonlad Festival (Portugal), and YATOO-i (South Korea). She was also nominated for the Video Production Award from the Kadist Foundation in 2013.

LISA HSIA is a transdisciplinary writer and artist, born, raised, and living in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is an alum of the Voices of Our Nations Arts Workshop (VONA) and the Interdisciplinary Writers Lab (IWL), and her recent essay on her world travels appears in The Places We've Been: Field Reports from Travelers Under 35. She likes to feed people and sketch cities.

LAURA KIM was born and raised in the U.S. and moved to S. Korea at the age of nine and later returned to the U.S. at the age of nineteen. She has received her B.S. in Art from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2009 and her M.F.A. from the New Genres Department, San Francisco Art Institute, in 2012. Kim currently resides and works in San Francisco, California.

YERIN KIM is an artist working with various mediums and methods to promote the idea of equality through acknowledgement of interdependency as human nature. She is currently living in San Francisco, and working at the California College of Art to get her Master’s degree in 2015. She was born in 1986 and raised Seoul, South Korea. She moved to The United States in 2006. Yerin receiver her undergraduate degree in Fine art and Ceramics at MICA: Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland.

MARYA KROGSTAD is a San Francisco based multi-media artist working in installation/environments, sculpture, film, video, audio, photography, and performative works. She is currently an Artist in Residence at Kala Art Institute, and in previous years, an Affiliate Artist at the Headlands Center for the Arts. She received her M.F.A. in 2009 from the San Francisco Art Institute and exhibits nationally and internationally.

CATHY LU works in paintings and sculptures to explore the relationship between her cultural history and contemporary identity. She received her BA/BFA from Tufts University/School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and her MFA in Sculpture from San Francisco Art Institute.

YUKI MARUYAMA’s drawings are inspired by the Japanese manga she avidly read throughout her childhood in the US and her adolescence in Japan, particularly the experimental manga produced in the 1960s onward, rife with humor, eros, absurdity, and defiance of conventions both social and artistic. Yuki received her MFA in Drawing and Painting from California College of the Arts in 2004.

CHRISTIE YURI NOH is constantly getting rid of stuff and would like to achieve nothing.

BARBARA OBATA Born in San Francisco, educated in San Francisco, Annapolis, Santa Fe, the streets of Flint, the Village, and the gritty studios of College of Marin, and pristine studios of Mills. Traveled through many of the 50 states by hook and by crook. Desired occupation as a child: hobo. Most beloved philosopher: previously Kierkegaard, now Aristotle.

NANCY OTTO is an installation artist working primarily with blown glass. She has exhibited across the country and her work has been featured in magazines such as the San Francisco Chronicle, Curve Magazine, and more. Nancy owns a glassblowing studio in the Excelsior District in San Francisco.

MAYA SMIRA was born and raised in Haifa, Israel, in the mountains close to the sea. She was always engaged with social ideas through the usage of photography, dance and varied forms of art. She exhibits both in California and Israel, as well as several other countries internationally.

MOONYOUNG SUNG was born in Seoul, Korea, where both traditional and modern elements coexist, and so has developed a profound attachment to that relationship occurred in life. As a painter and printmaker, her work has been based on recording her memory and relationship with great importance of color.

VINCENT YIN was born and raised in Fremont, a city probably best known for being the southernmost stop on the Fremont-Richmond BART line, and is currently a student at UC Berkeley studying mathematics and art. Recently, he’s been torn between creating art about cultural identity and, having been recently inspired by John Cage, thinking more abstractly about random numbers.

COMICS & ILLUSTRATION

BEN SETO (Featured Artist) was born in Oakland California in 1980. Before Ben could speak he was already trying to communicate with drawings. when Ben was about 5, his very first drawing was of a Transformer, he drew it to tell his mom that he wanted to watch Transformers on TV. In the 5th grade, Ben discovered the original Eastman and Laird's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle comics, and since then he has stubbornly tried to pursue his life long dreams of creating comics! In 2012, Ben was awarded one of the final Xeric grants, coincidentally established by Peter Laird, co creator of the teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, to self publish his comic series, Usagi Jane and The Skullbunnies.

CRIS B is a cartoonist based in San Francisco, CA. Her paintings have been featured at Chutes and Ladders exhibit at Hotel Des Arts, the Comic & Zine show at Nielsen Arts and the Making Waves fundraiser at I-Hotel. Her cartoons have been featured at the East Bay Zine Fest as well as local comedy flyers and posters.

SAM COAASS was born and raised in the North Bay. She likes to draw comics (the writing is a pain), watch movies, and sleep - not always in that order. She'd also like it if the next Superman film isn't horrible.

SCARLETT HAN is an illustrator and graphic designer. She received her MFA in Illustration from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.

HA HUY HOANG grew up in Hanoi, Vietnam, and studied architecture before deciding to become a cartoonist and took an animation course at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, CA.

CHARLENE KELLEY is a glitter artist creating interesting paintings that sparkle. Influenced by working in graphic design, animation, games, and film she has exhibited in various galleries and art shows around the Bay Area including Studio Gallery SF, SF Bazaar Maker Faire, Alternative Press Expo, Public Works, and her first solo show at Trickster.

ELLIS KIM is an illustrator native to Alameda, working on his current project "Time Fiddler," a story about a time-traveling girl. He left his job in late 2013 working as a project manager in web technologies to hitchhike and travel around the United States so that he might be able to write better stories. His art debuted at 20Mission's "INSIDE COMICS" Art Show.

JEAN KIM is an illustrator based in San Francisco. She got her BFA and MFA in Fine Art and Graphic Design in Korea and currently completing an MFA in Children’s Book Illustration at Academy of Art University. Jean has always dreamed of making a children’s book that both adults and children could enjoy.

VINCENT KUKUA was born in Honolulu, HI and came to the mainland when he was five. He has worked in the comics industry as a production artist for the last 6 years after leaving art school.

WENDY LAU is a Bay Area native and an art hobbyist. She enjoys using both watercolor and pen in her art, and draws her influences from pop surrealist artists.

ERIN LEONG is a California Bay Area artist whose work blends unique style inspired by fashion, film, and dance. As a self-employed entity, she pursues her own business selling her art, providing creative services for a variety of clients, and participating in gallery shows. She specializes in illustration, Flash animation, and game art.

SAI LI is currently enrolled in the San Francisco Art Institute’s MFA program in painting. She is also an animator, illustrator, drawer, and cartoonist.

AMY LIU is a freelance graphic designer and illustrator based in the Bay Area. She graduated in 2010 from UC Davis with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Design. When not creating professional work for big and small businesses, start ups, and private clients, she enjoys doodling, drawing, and making things and sharing them with others on the web.

JACKIE LO is a Bay Area artist from Oakland, striving to become a comic artist. She was an Illustration Graduate at the California College of the Arts, but is currently attending Heald College for Pharmacy Technology. Her main inspirations include Q. Hayashida, Kokuzawa Yousuke, Tsutomu Nihei, and Junko Mizuno.

THANH MA was born in 1988 in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. She came to the United States in 1993 when she was 5 years old. She attended the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, California where she studied character design under Ryan Woodward. Even though she been influenced by both of western and Asia cartoon character design, at the end of the day she prefers Asian culture with some western design twist.

ANTHONY MATA lives and works in San Francisco as an illustrator/cartoonist. His illustrations and cartoons have appeared on The Guardsman newspaper, Etc. Magazine, El Tecolote, San Francisco Bay Guardian, Missionlocal.org, and BelleSF. He's also won various awards in journalism based on my drawings and illustrations.

TU-ANH NGUYEN was born and raised in Oakland, CA. Her parents were immigrants from Vietnam and raised her to be aware of their heritage and community. Their teachings about their culture inspired her to travel to their homeland and growing up in the diverse city of Oakland enriched her passion for travel and to see the rest of the world. Art is everywhere, and she travels to see and experiment with amazing works of art.

MARIA URBI is a freelance illustrator and exhibiting artist based in Oakland CA. She has exhibited in galleries such as 111 Minna, Wonderland SF, Warehouse 416, Cartoon Museum, Chopsticks Urban Art space to name a few, as well as an artist exhibitor for the Oakland Art Murmur, San Francisco Art Fair, and East Bay Open Studios. She received her BFA in Illustration at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, CA.

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LITERARY ARTS

LEHUA M. TAITANO (Featured Artist), a native Chamoru from Yigo, Guahån (Guam), is a queer poet, writer and artist living in Sonoma County, California. She is the author of one volume of poetry, A Bell Made of Stones (2013 TinFish Press). Taitano studied English and Education at Appalachian State University, where she was awarded a North Carolina Teaching Fellows scholarship. After serving five years as a teacher and Academically Gifted Coordinator in the North Carolina Public Schools System, she earned an M.F.A. at The University of Montana’s Creative Writing Program. Her poetry, essays, and Pushcart Prize-nominated fiction have appeared in Witness, Storyboard, The Yellow Medicine Review, The Offending Adam, Nano Fiction, andTinfish Journal, among others. Taitano was the 2010 Merriam-Frontier Award winner and author of a chapbook of short fiction, appalachiapacific. Her nonfiction essay “Reticulation” won dislocate’s 2010 Contaminated Essay Contest, judged by Lia Purpura. In 2011, she received the Baker-Theede Writer’s Residency Grant in Asheville, North Carolina. She is currently at work on a collection of short fiction titled Sudden Fortune and is ever seeking opportunities for collaboration on visual art/poetry installations.

JENNIFER S. CHENG received her MFA in Nonfiction Writing from the University of Iowa and her BA from Brown University. She is the author of a chapbook, Invocation: An Essay (New Michigan Press), and is the recipient of a U.S. Fulbright Fellowship, a Kundiman Fellowship, the Academy of American Poets Harold Taylor Award, and most recently the Mid-American Review Fineline Prize. Her writing appears in Web Conjunctions, Tin House, the Collagist, Ninth Letter, Seneca Review, and Fifty-Fifty, an anthology of Hong Kong writing.

SUSAN CALVILLO is the author of "Excerpts From My Grocery List" (Beard of Bees, 2013). Her poetry has appeared in ZYZZYVA, New American Writing, West Wind Review, LUMINA, and Gesture with the Gorilla Press.

CALVIN FANTONE is an idea in infancy, a lightbulb in a warehouse brimming with chandeliers. His work has appeared in FreezeRay, Writing Without Walls, The Legendary, and elsewhere. He is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of San Francisco.

DICKSON LAM has taught high school in New York, Oakland, and San Francisco and was a founding teacher at June Jordan School for Equity. His work can be found or is forthcoming in The Normal School, PANK, The Rumpus, and Kartika Review. He holds creative writing degrees from the University of Houston and Rutgers-Newark and is a VONA alum.

ROBERT RICARDO REESE is a finalist for the California Writers Exchange Award (Poets & Writers Magazine) and a nominee for Best of the Net 2013 (Sundress Publications), I am also a Cave Canem Fellow. My work has appeared in The Cave Canem Anthology, Pinwheel, Blackbird, The Asia Literary Review, Drunken Boat, Poems Against War, and in other journals. A graduate of the M.F.A. program at San Francisco State University, I have taught poetry as a Writer-in-Residence at the Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts.

JANICE SAPIGAO is a Pinay poet born and raised in San Jose, CA. Her work has been published in Quaint Magazine, Broad! and AngryAsianMan.com, among others. She earned her M.F.A. in Critical Studies/Writing at CalArts. She co-founded an open mic in Los Angeles called the Sunday Jump. She now lives in the Bay Area where she teaches at Skyline College and San Jose City College. She enjoys drinking green tea, running, and playing with stuffed animals. Please visit her website for more information: janicewrites.com

JAZ SUFI is a poet, a Bay Area native, an excavator of the human condition, and delighted to make your acquaintance. She competed on the city of Stockton’s Pierced Ear Poets team in 2012 and 2013, as well as being voted audience’s choice both years at inkSlam, and represented San Francisco at the 2013 Women of the World Poetry Slam. She was also a featured poet at the 2011 USF Creative Justice Art Show, and will be published in the upcoming Hurt to Hope Anthology.

BRANDON YOUNG is a poet from a family of educators, taught to write and perform by the CalSLAM poetry cult.

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MUSIC

Cynthia Lin (Featured Artist) is a San Francisco-based singer, songwriter, producer, director, and teacher. As a solo performer, Cynthia is known for her commanding voice, electric stage presence, and distinctive point of view. She has released 3 solo albums and toured nationally. Her latest release, Midnight Echoes, features the Blue Moon All Stars, an 8-piece Bay Area "little big band" with an eclectic, acoustic sound. Cynthia produced the band's music video for Zombie Heart, as well as the Microscope music video for her 2010 release. Cynthia loves teaching and is known as San Francisco's ukulele teacher. She encourages you to follow your passion.

AUMA is a band from San Francisco, California, comprised of two Japanese nationals, on lead guitars and vocals, and a pair of California locals rounding out the bass and drum rhythm unit.

DIRTY BOOTS members met in a vocal jazz ensemble in college. At the time, James was a horn player with the roots band, One Struggle and Rachel, a bass and key player for the indie rock band, Creeper Lagoon. Since 2009, they’ve infused their love of Hip-hop, R&B, Jazz and Rock into an eclectic mix that can best be described as indie soul.

LAYLA A. is a 20 year old singer/songwriter. She’s a self-taught vocalist and guitarist born and raised in San Jose, CA. Striving to expand her music in the Bay Area and further, Layla shares her acoustic vibes onstage with her own twist on Indie and Folk influenced songwriting.

PARAE currently comprises of E, TKO, and M. Their current lineup has been together since 2012 and is featured on their most recent album, Crystal Venom.

PETER CHUNG is a Korean American singer-songwriter who left his desk job in 2012 to pursue his musical dream. Since then he has opened for 3x Grammy winner Esperanza Spalding, won 1st place in both Kollaboration SF and the SF 2013 Diesel Indie Music Contest. Peter Chung released his debut album "i write WE sing" in January 2014 and it is available on iTunes.

THE EDOMITES like noise. They like improvisational work. They like cats and love the Bay Area. They have done a lot over the pasts years and love it. They've been lump summed with all kinds of misrepresentations from EDM to DUB STEP, but in the end they are free jazz/noise/experimental. Enjoy!

WRÄTH originally started as a four piece band in the music room of Balboa High School, Steve (guitar, vox), Eli (bass), Kai (guitar), and JJ (drums) all came together wanting to play music legitimately. They played their first show at a Battle of the Bands, at the Jewish Contemporary Museum, in the summer of 2010, and have played in venues like SUBmission Art Gallery, and the Brain Wash Cafe, as well as others all around San Francisco. After a brief hiatus in 2011-2012, Steve and Eli recruited ex-Anonimato drummer Carlos to fill in, eventually becoming a full time member, restarting WrätH as a three piece band. With a few new songs, and concepts to present, they started playing shows monthly in 2013, while remaining in San Francisco.

Lenny San Jose, aka UKULENNY, is a performer and educator in the Bay Area. Born and raised in San Diego, CA, he moved to the Bay to pursue an education in music, attaining a music degree from UC Berkeley in 2008. An avid multi-instrumentalist, Lenny plays over 15 instruments including flute, clarinet, saxophone, cello, guitar, bass, drums, bandurria, and of course, the ukulele. His YouTube channel boasts of over 25,000 subscribers and over 2 million video views, serving aspiring ukulele players all over the world with his covers and tutorials. Currently, he teaches in the Berkeley Unified School District as an instrumental teacher, while continuing to spread his message of ukulele love to uke players everywhere.

PERFORMING ARTS

NATALIA DUONG (Featured Artist) is a performance artist, choreographer, and scholar, native to the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work investigates the many ways that we inherit war. She has collaborated with artists to perform internationally in Edinburgh, Paris, Uganda, and Vietnam. Her work has been presented in university settings at Massachusetts Institute for Technology (MIT), University of Massachusetts Boston, New York University, Northwestern University, Duke University, and Stanford University in addition to various dance venues such as Movement Research, Dance New Amsterdam, Chen Dance Center, and Dixon Place. In 2013, she gave a TEDx talk on her research regarding Kinesthetic Empathy at TEDxStanford. She holds a Masters degree in Performance Studies from Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, and is a graduate of Stanford University with a BA in Psychology and Dance. Natalia is currently pursuing her Ph.D. at UC Berkeley in Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies.

AMANDA CHAUDHARY is a composer and performer specializing in contemporary and electronic music. Her solo work involves experimenting with innovative sounds via analog synthesis and custom software with computers and mobile devices as well as folk and toy instruments. Her other ensemble projects include Reconnaissance Fly, an art-pop band; and Surplus 1980, a post-punk band.

ANISHA MAUZE is a young Indian girl born and raised in the South Bay Area, California. She attended UCSC, where she participated in and organized college poetry slams, and graduated with a BA in Psychology in 2013. She is currently a Substitute Paraeducator, working in high school and post second ary special ed classrooms. She also has a YouTube channel where she talks about psychology, poetry, prose, and reads her soft spoken word.

BONNIE KWONG is a multi-media poet and a software developer. She speaks Cantonese, Mandarin, some Japanese, ruby, javascript, and html. She has lived in nine states and two continents. Writing is a way for her to traverse seen and unseen geographies. Her work has been published in California Quarterly, The Columbia Review, Crab Orchard Review, Drunken Boat, and others. Her book-length poetry manuscript, Ravel, has been listed as a finalist for the Many Voices Project by New Rivers Press, and the White Pine Press Poetry Prize. Ravel is forthcoming with Neopoeisis Press in summer of 2015.

OLIVER MOK is a composer and guitarist who has been actively playing in many genres ranging from soul, rock and jazz. His recent focus has been on compositions for improvising musicians. "Contraband" is his first long performance composition.

IRENE TU is a stand-up comic, writer, and performer from Chicago, now living in San Francisco. Some have described her as “sarcastic” but she just tells it like it is. She has been in SF Sketchfest, Limestone Comedy Festival, Cape Fear Comedy Festival, She-Devil Comedy Festival, Chicago Women’s Funny Festival, and was a finalist in Rooftop Comedy’s National College Comedy Competition. You can see her perform all around Chicago and the Bay Area.

JAEHTHEO Jaehtheo is a poet, hip-hop artist, activist, event producer and permanent alien. He is a co-founding member of Boondock Squad and the founder of the Versus Odds production group.

QINMIN is an interdisciplinary artist from China, and graduated from San Francisco State University with a BFA in Dance and performance. She studied with KT Nelson, Shen Wei, Ohad Naharin, Vanessa Voskuil, and many international artists. Currently, Qinmin is the artistic director of Qinmin Arts, and presented works at Yerba Buena Center for The Arts(U.S), Kunst-stoff arts center(U.S), American Dance Festival, Art Galleries, and International Film Festivals.

SPULU PACIFIC ENSEMBLE grew up in Oakland, CA and has danced for multiple companies in the Bay Area: Future Shock Oakland, Destiny Arts, Chapkis Dance, and is now currently dancing with City College of San Francisco Strong Pulse Dance Company and Culture Shock Oakland. He is the Director for Future Shock Oakland and founder for House of Chiefs (HOC). His dance style is a modern contemporary fusion of Pacific Islander Cultural movement and hip hop. In the future , SPULU hopes to finish school and open a visual and performing arts school for low income students.

FILM

SHIYAN FENG (Featured Artist) is a filmmaker who was born and raised in China. She’s interested in documentaries of social justice and narrative portrayals of people’s real-life experiences and struggles. As a bilingual filmmaker, she’s aiming to make films both in China and in the U.S. Her first 16mm film, BRIDGE, was selected and screened in the Shanghai International Film Festival. BEI YAO WAN, SHANGHAI, a documentary she made in China, was shown in the Cannes Film Festival and the San Francisco Asian American Film Festival, and went on to win the best documentary award in the Corona Fastnet Short Film Festival. Shiyan is graduated from SFSU Department of Cinema and is currently developing several projects including her feature debut.

PENNY BALDADO was born and raised in the Philippines and moved to the US, where she has lived as an undocumented immigrant for 14 years. She also started Cafe Gabriela, a cafe in Oakland.

DIO CHEN gained her bachelor’s degree in Visual Design in China. Now she is an MFA candidate in filmmaking in San Francisco Art Institute. Her films and dramas have been presented in various film festivals. Currently, she is working on film and installations in the San Francisco Bay Area.

LILY CHEN is an award-winning filmmaker and photographer. Her works have been shown at Cannes Film Festival Short Film Connor, SFMOMA, YBCA, and so on. She was selected into the 25th Eddie Adams Workshop for photo-journalism. She served as a judge at the 38th Telluride International Film Festival and was a judge in the Journalism Education Association’s National High School Journalism Convention competition. She is working and living in San Francisco under her O1 visa now.

RUPERT ESTANISLAO is a writer, frontman and community organizer who co-runs Aklasan records based out of the Bay Area. He also sings for his most current projects, Bankrupt District and AninoKo, and was a member of the spoken word trio, The Suicide Kings. This is his first attempt at a documentary.

JERILYN GUERRERO was born on the island of Guam in 1988. Jerilyn seeks to continually widen her skill-sets, which include visual design, motion graphics, web design, coding, UI/UX, illustration and editing. She works as a Multimedia Design Intern at Riverbed Technology and is a student at Academy of Art University in San Francisco.

JAIME LASTIMOSA was introduced to film making at a young age and from then on he sought to explore the world of film. Everything around him inspires him, and nurtures him creativity. Music and illustration are also things he immerses himself in.

PETE LEE is a San Francisco-based director who specializes in music videos, fight scenes, and making food look really, really sexy. He has directed the likes of comedian Patton Oswalt, hip-hop artist Aesop Rock, martial arts legend Patti Li, celebrity dwarf cat Lil’ Bub, and many others. His directorial work has premiered in Rolling Stone, MTV, NPR, Vice, Comic-Con, the San Francisco International Film Festival, amongst other outlets. On days off, Lee enjoys inventing Taiwanese dishes, faking martial arts, and covering Mariah Carey.

TSERING NORBU is a Tibetan who is learning how to make films. He also writes, takes photos, and does some Tibetan calligraphy. He grew up in India. Experiences of being an exile and a refugee finding a place to call home, to feel a sense of belonging informs his work. He calls Oakland, Fruitvale in particular, his home in America.

JUHEE SO is a filmmaker from Seoul, South Korea. She is currently enrolled in MFA Cinema Major at San Francisco State University. She produced six short films including A Room of His Own, which was selected as top ten finalists in Women Director’s category in Director’s Guild of America’s Student Film Awards in 2013.

PAWARA SOH is a filmmaker based in San Francisco. He recently graduated from the cinema department of San Francisco State University with honors. Many of his films are currently in the film festivals circuit around the world. He finds films that intervene social politics and cultures fascinating and meaningful.