In Our Prime
by Laura Ming Wong
Through photographic portraits and audio interviews taken in 2017, In Our Prime documents five Asian American women aged 60 and above as they respond to various questions about their identity: what they are passionate about, what they are looking forward to, and how they would like to be seen.
In Our Prime was partially inspired by a longing to connect with my elders, who seemed inaccessible due to language barriers, generational gaps, shared discomfort with intimacy, and unavailability, as my own grandparents passed away long ago. The other reason why this series exists is largely due to my friend Susan, who rebuffed “prevailing notions of older Asian American women as cute grannies, invisible immigrants, or merely exotic” by producing sensual, nude portraits of herself while in her 70s. Moved by her boldness, I wanted this series to elevate the visibility of these women, while directly depicting how they wanted to be seen.
The project was paused for several years as I tended to my personal life: I lost my mother suddenly in 2018, and in 2022 I became a mother, which surfaced feelings of womanhood and aging. With renewed attention, I returned to these interviews as if they contained a roadmap towards a more predictable life. With luck, these golden years lay waiting for all of us some day. And while there is no certainty what our lives will be like, these women present–through their own lives and stories–the hopeful and endless possibilities of what could be.
Laura Ming Wong
Bio
Guided by curiosity and engaging with empathy, my photographs document communities I meet either deliberately or by chance encounters. As a native of the Midwest, I received a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology at the University of Michigan and later moved to the Bay Area where I completed courses in documentary photography, photojournalism, and studio photography at community colleges in San Francisco and Oakland. I have worked as a production assistant for tv and reality shows, as a wedding photographer, and as a photo stringer at The Oakland Post, while taking assignments for local and multinational commercial clients. Personal projects have included a group of Bay Area MCs, elderly Asian American women, and boxing gyms in the U.S. and Latin America. In recent years, my photos have been closer to home: my mother’s lost battle with cancer, and rediscovering joy and wonder through the birth of my twin daughters.
