Discover a new take on Asian American cultures
During September, see, hear, create, and connect. Together, celebrate the rich cultural fabric of Boston Chinatown through free creative activities for all.
Experience Chinatown will happen rain or shine! In case of inclement weather, performances will be at Pao Arts Center, 99 Albany Street. Masks will be required indoors.
Window Installations at Local Businesses:
Thursday, September 9 – Sunday, October 3
Enjoy lively murals by Melody Hsu, Soyoung Kim, Jillian King, payal kumar, Shaina Lu, Stephanie Pan, Yuanyuan Wang, and Helen Yung.
Create your own self-paced tour:
APM coffee: 99 Kneeland St, Boston, MA 02111, Community and Coffee, Jillian King
Liuyishou Hotpot Boston: 702 Washington St, Boston, MA 02111, The Food That Binds Us, Stephanie Pan
Happy Lamb Hotpot Boston: 693 Washington St, Boston, MA 02111, Year of the Ox , Helen Yung
Dumpling Cafe: 695 Washington St, Boston, MA 02111, Greetings With Tea, Yuanyuan Wang
Penang Malaysian Restaurant: 685 Washington St, Boston, MA 02111, On Wave of Memory, Soyoung Kim
Q Restaurant: 660 Washington St, Boston, MA 02111, Lion Resistance, Shaina Lu
Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center: 38 Ash Street, Boston, MA 02111, Guiding Lights, Melody Hsu and payal kumar
Residence Lab Activation at Mary Soo Hoo Park on the Rose Kennedy Greenway (near Chinatown Gate)
Interact with artwork by Residence Lab 2021 lead artists Sheila Novak, Yuko Okabe, Brian Pistols, and Kathy Wu with community members Itasha Daniels, Clare Florentino, Cass Li, Amy Lam, and Elaine Liang that respond to the theme, “Collective Care.” Residence Lab is a partnership between Pao Arts Center and Asian Community Development Corporation (ACDC) to empower and train artists and residents to collectively preserve the Chinatown community through creative and artistic space activation. This year’s installation is supported by The Greenway.
Schedule:
Saturday, September 25 | 12:00 - 3:00 pm
Chinatown Park on The Greenway (near Chinatown Gate)
Auntie Kay & Uncle Frank Chin Park
12:00 pm | Dance Performance by Jennifer Lin
12:15 pm | Dance Performance + Workshop by ConArt
1:00 pm | Musical Performance by Mikahely
2:00 pm | Dance Performance by Continuum Dance Project
2:15 pm | Musical Performance by Juk Sing
Pao Arts Center (99 Albany Street)
Chinese Lion Head Photo Booth with Becky Yee Photography
They Watch You Thrive installation by Chanel Matsunami Govreau with collaborations by Jhona Xaviera, Micah Rose, Julissa Emile, payal kumar, and Jae Quisol
One Greenway Park, Hudson Street Stoop, 66 - 88 Hudson Street
Storytell and Sway by Gianna Stewart
8 Hudson Street
(Cancelled) Place of Assembly Interactive Workshop
Join artist Ang Li in a brick-painting workshop to contribute to the creation of an ongoing public art installation on 8-12 Hudson Street.
** Performances will follow Commonwealth of Massachusetts guidelines as they evolve. Hand sanitizer stations will be available.
Visual Artists:
Melody (Yu-Hsuan) Hsu is a multidisciplinary creator from Taiwan. Melody is soulfully inspired by both her cross-cultural identity and her background in visual arts. Having designed for plays like “Abortion Road Trip,” which was nominated for the 38EVVYs award for Outstanding Scenic Design, she has also been invited to design a collection of short films, including music videos like “Get Out of My Head” by Four Years Strong, recently premiered on Billboard.
Soyoung L Kim’s mixed media and installation practice converges memories of the past, the feeling of the present, and the dreams of the future. Transforming forgotten materials into something new, Kim draws inspiration from her art-adjacent practice as a writer to create dynamic, ethereal compositions scattered with poignant textual references. She currently lives and works in Boston, MA.
Jillian King is a Boston-based designer and recent graduate of Massachusetts College of Art and Design. A design strategist by trade, her work often explores creating connections and building empathy through storytelling. When she's not doodling, she enjoys crafting unusually flavored waffles, roller skating, and binge-listening to podcasts.
payal kumar (they/them) is a diasporic dreamer working towards inclusive solidarity and liberation based on Wampanoag territory. As a multimedia artist, doula, medical advocate, and futurism fanatic, they invoke the power of interdisciplinary movement-building to construct tender new possibilities of being beyond borders and capital. Their visual work is rooted in the Desi folk art of their ancestral villages and traditional Americana tattoos to construct new in-between spaces exploring mental illness, queer intimacy, and traumas around embodiment.
Ang Li is an architect and Assistant Professor at the School of Architecture at Northeastern University. Her work operates at the intersection between architecture, experimental preservation and public art to speculate on the maintenance rituals and material afterlives behind architectural production.
Shaina Lu (she/her) is a queer Taiwanese-American artist interested in the intersection of art, education, and activism. She studied Arts in Education at Harvard Graduate School of Education, and her art and teaching practice focuses on storytelling and amplifying community voices. Shaina drinks juice every day, and she is full of sugar.
Sheila Novak is an interdisciplinary artist with a commitment to socially-engaged art as a form of collective care and creating more equitable futures. In her creative practice, she focalizes the land as an extension of the body and a locus for healing. A jack-of-all-trades, Sheila's practice has included painting, sculpture, bronze casting, ceramics, drawing, fiber art, and gardening.
Yuko Okabe is a Boston-based illustrator and artist with a passion for community-centered storytelling in community development . She is currently a Rose Artist fellow with the North Shore Community Development Coalition where she's worked as a community facilitator for affordable housing projects, community engagement programs, young adult programs, and cultural workshops. She eats oatmeal almost every day and is a very proud auntie.
Brian Pistols
Brian Pistols is a performance artist with twenty years’ experience of Breaking, one of the earliest forms of street dance. His extensive experience ranges from competing all across the country, being a resident performer with the Boston Celtics, teaching locally and internationally, but he is most proud of his passion project "Entering ShaoLynn" which celebrates the rich Breaking history of his hometown of Lynn, MA. Brian is also the Co-Founder and Operations Director of The Flavor Continues, a Greater Boston-based nonprofit organization that serves the Street and Club dance communities through education, events, and community building.
Stephanie Pan is a freelance illustrator, receiving her BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. She has a passion for visual storytelling, drawing inspiration from different aspects of her life, especially her experience as an American-Born Chinese. Stephanie’s work is both dynamic and engaging as she utilizes a variety of media to express different narratives. Her work has been shown in multiple exhibitions in Massachusetts, and she currently lives and works in Boston.
Kathy Wu
Kathy Wu is a Boston-based artist who is interested in making complex information more accessible to people through art, and helping to uplift people’s voices in imaginative ways. She is also a tech creative who grew up in Massachusetts. She has been a member of Asian American Resource Workshop since 2019 and is connected to CPA’s Stabilization Committee and Greater Boston Mutual Aid.
Yuanyuan Wang is a Taiwanese artist currently base in Boston. I am interested in showing personal experience on cultural and life through art, especially through the placement of textures, layers, and colors. My subject matters often surrounded with whimsical figures and elements.
Helen Yung
The child of Hong Kong immigrants, Helen grew up mostly just south of Boston, spending many a Sunday afternoon in Boston Chinatown after church having good food with friends. She's experienced first-hand (and seen second hand, as an ancient history nerd) how art connects communities across ages, cultures, and beliefs. She currently lives in Quincy and New York.
Performance Artists:
Laid-back R&B feels and emotionally-driven honest lyrics are what define Boston-based singer/songwriter, Ava Sophia. In October 2019, Ava released her debut EP, “To See and Hear Hxrself”, a project dedicated to exploring the relationship between femininity and vulnerability, and empowering women/femmes of color to feel and express our emotions to the fullest extent. She was most recently nominated for “R&B Artist of the Year” at the 2020 Boston Music Awards. Her true passion and ambition are captured when she describes music to be “the only way I know how to make the world a better place”.
aznjujube and Jeff La
Inspired by the nostalgia of the early 2000's AZN era, aznjujube is an experimental-pop project that incorporates live-looping, mandolin riffs, mountain noises, and lo-fi hip hop beats. Jeff La is a virtuosic dulcimerist who has been performing in the Boston Chinatown and surrounding areas since the 90s.
The CONcept ARTists, also known as ConArt, debuted in 2011 and for years have performed throughout the Northeast, sharing their multitude of styles and flavors. In 2016, ConArt hosted its first self-produced showcase, CONcentrate On The ARTistry, and has turned it into an annual celebration of New England's dance and recording artists since. Always with more on the horizon, ConArt builds on their legacy by providing high quality performance, instruction, and creative services.
Continuum Dance Project (CDP) is a Boston based dance company focused on creating site-specific work, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and reflecting the backgrounds of our collaborating artists. Founded in 2013 by Fernadina Chan, CDP has shown dance in concerts and festivals throughout New England. Co-Directors Brayton and Chan have been creating together since 2007, most notably “Passage Through Blue” (2017) for Boston Center for the Arts, and “Forage in Park" (2020) at Larz Anderson Park.
Juk Sing
Inspired by the Cantonese hits of the 80s and 90s, these Kwong Kow Chinese School dropouts have performed covers of Beyond, Faye Wong, and many more across the Greater Boston Area since 2018. By sharing these classics along with original songs, Juk Sing (JK Wong, Jeffrey La, and Ashley Yu) hopes to bring back some cultural nostalgia with a dream pop twist.
Photo credit: The Dance Complex
Jennifer Lin is a classically trained dancer, independent choreographer, and teaching artist of American and Korean descent. Raised in the Midwest, she holds degrees from Boston Conservatory and The University of Hawai`i at Manoa. Lin situates her artistic work in interstitial spaces between tradition and modernity, form and expression, and theory and practice. Currently an Artist-In-Residence at Mount Auburn, Lin is creating The Gathering Place, an outdoor site-specific dance that draws inspiration from local history, nature, and human experiences, to be presented in October 2021.
Photo credit: Kaleigh Watson
Amy Manion (singer/ guitarist; spoken word artist) is so proud to be performing a short walk away from where her mother and her family first lived when they came to America. A community-based performing artist, Amy uses the arts to heal and to connect. Amy's goal is to spread joy and to share space, envisioning a place where everyone can be free.
Mikahely is a singer-songwriter who hails from the beautiful island of Madagascar, but his music is out of this world! A self-taught musician, he draws inspiration from traditional Malagasy rhythms to create his own unique and healing sounds on guitar and valiha (a zither-like instrument made from bamboo). Singing his original music in his native language of Malagasy, Mikahely transcends boundaries. Having toured in Madagascar and Europe, he now brings his music to new audiences in the United States. He is also featured in the documentary Guitar Madagascar.
W.A.G. is a local rock band founded in 2018 and formed by young professionals in Greater Boston area. W.A.G plays an active role in college events and local Asian communities and has major influence in young professionals and international students. Members: JoJo (vocals), Goldie Chen (guitar), Paul (Guitar), K (Bassist), Fried Rice (Drummer)
This event is made possible by our sponsors:
Become a Sponsor: Click here or contact Jean Quintal for more information.