[Image description: a mixed-race Asian person with short, dark brown hair and Clark-Kent-style glasses is taking a selfie in front of the Brooklyn Public Library. They are in their wheelchair, and a black standard poodle is perched on their lap, looking off to the left with a very engaged expression.]

Liú (pronounced “lee-oo”; pronouns: they/them) Méi-Zhì Wén-Yuàn Bransfield Chen is a queer, trans non-binary, disabled, mixed-race (Taiwanese/Irish), Abolitionist nerd. Some of their not-so-secret loves include math, musical theater counterpoint duets, women’s basketball, and bodies of water.

Their work combines technology, education, and storytelling, striving to thaw trauma, create connection, and empower community members (and themselves). One of their central thematic explorations is regarding the textures and dimensions of silence. Their most recent project is “finding the tidal flats,” the pilot episode of the tidal flats, a documentary-collage on east-asian queer kinship. They hope to continue producing their documentary-collage as a practice in interrogating and expanding typical understandings of Asian diaspora, identity, and kinship, with particular focuses on West Asian and Afro-Asian perspectives, and the locus of islands.

Liú also works as the Voices Lifted Oral History Co-Manager at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of African American History and Culture in Baltimore, focusing their interviews on movement history. Coming from a History and Black Studies background, Liú has dedicated themselves to probing and uplifting the wide spectrum of historic, contemporary, and future potential relationships between Asian and Black communities. They are guided by vanguard coalition activists/scholars including Grace Lee Boggs, Audre Lorde, and Ella Jo Baker.

Liú has often been called a trouble-maker.