Emerson Goo (long bio)

I’m a Deaf writer, film curator, and planner/landscape designer from and based in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi. My primary interests are film, moving-image art, and environmental design across the Asia-Pacific region. My writing can be found in publications such as e-flux Criticism, Film Comment, MUBI Notebook, Screen Slate, Cinema Scope, Landscape Architecture Magazine, Design Museum Magazine, and the New York Review of Architecture. I am a strong advocate for disabled inclusion in the arts and across the built environment professions.

I'm the founder of UNDERCURRENTS, a screening series/film club in Honolulu focusing on innovative and experimental non-fiction films. I’ve programmed films for the Honolulu Museum of Art, multi.projects, and the Cal Poly Film Production Society. I've twice been a mentor for the Hawaiʻi International Film Festival's Online Critics and Creators Immersive. In 2024, I served on the Letterboxd Piazza Grande jury at the Locarno Film Festival. In 2022, I was a Documentary Magazine Editorial Fellow at the International Documentary Association. I am a current member of NETPAC and the Hawaiʻi Film Critics Society.

I am profoundly deaf. I wore a unilateral cochlear implant until I was 12, when I had it removed due to chronic ear infections. I do not wear hearing aids. I'm a classically-trained percussionist, and have performed with the Cal Poly Percussion Ensemble and the Hawaiʻi Youth Percussion Ensemble. These days, I'm mostly behind a drumset... I love performing, and don't do it as often as I should. I also love playing the ukulele.

Photo by Cole Turner.