Cori Nakamura Lin (she/her)
has been creating her own magic and culture out of necessity: she is a Japanese//Taiwanese-American illustrator and designer specializing in culture-centered storytelling and radical information sharing.
She wants us to lengthen our concept of time and invites us to hold the present moment loosely in our hands. Her art roots Asian American folks in collective struggle, by visualizing marginalized narratives and illuminating concepts of abolition, community care, and generational curse-breaking. By pushing us to imagine future(s) beyond this current dimension, Cori makes art that fuels action.
Her work has been published in the LA Times, Eater Chicago, WBEZ Curious City Chicago, PBS Learning Media, the Twin Cities Daily Planet, and has been featured on the History Channel. In 2018, Cori illustrated the children’s book When Everything Was Everything, written by Saymoukda Duangphoxay Vongsay. She most recently illustrated her sister Jami Nakamura Lin’s speculative memoir, The Night Parade, forthcoming Oct 2023 from Mariner Books/HarperCollins.
Cori’s artwork is created in conversation with Japanese-American communities in Chicago and the midwest. As an organizer, she works to build an anti-imperial JA identity and action with her dōshi. She is an active member of Nikkei Uprising Chicago, and has participated in the Tsuru for Solidarity Prisons & Policing Workgroup, and the Nikkei Abolition Study Group.
Cori is accountable to communities in Chicago and Minneapolis. As an artist and community organizer, she is in solidarity with other communities of color to fight for Black and queer liberation, Indigenous sovereignty, the end of empire and climate justice.
Through her work, she is trying to understand: How do we cultivate hope through the collapse of society? How do we carry multiple legacies into an uncertain future? How do we re-root as unmoored people in an occupied land?
She is the recipient of the Minnesota State Arts Board 2019 Cultural Community Partnership Grant, the Minnesota Regional Arts Council 2019 Community Arts Grant, 2018 Jerome Emerging Artist Tofte Lake Residency, and the CURA Artist Neighborhood Partnership Grant 2017-2018.