Asian American Women Artists Association

Join us next week on March 27 for our annual Slide Slam and final Women's History Month event! Asian American women artists share their work with 4 slides in 4 minutes with rapid-fire presentations along with featured arts guests. For more info about the artists and guests: https://www.aawaa.net/slide-slam-2021

For those of you who didn't register for Local Invisibility, Postcolonial Feminisms Artists Panel & Discussion but still want to tune in, you can view the event on our YouTube channel.

Join us this afternoon for our Local Invisibility, Postcolonial Feminisms Artists Panel & Discussion at 2pm! It takes its name from the book by author and today's moderator Laura Fantone who offers gendered, postcolonial insights into the poetic and artistic work of four generations of female Asian American artists in the San Francisco Bay Area. Nancy Hom, Betty Kano, Flo Oy Wong, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Theresa H.K. Cha, and Hung Liu are discussed in relation to the cultural poli...tics of their time, and their art is examined in light of the question of what it means to be an Asian American artist. Fantone’s exploration of this dynamic, understudied artistic community begets a sensitive and timely reflection on the state of Asian American women in the US and in Californian cultural institutions. The book also features a chapter on AAWAA, entitled, AAWAA: Visibility, Pan-Asian Identity and the Limits of Community. See more

For those of you who were not able to register in time for ILLUMINATE, you can still view the event on our YouTube Stream. Join in community for poetry, grieving, and healing.

Our 2nd Women's History Month event Local Invisibility, Postcolonial Feminisms Artists Panel & Discussion is happening tomorrow afternoon. Join us for this intergenerational panel that highlights the experiences of Asian American women artists and the impactful contributions they are making in contemporary art, culture, feminism and society at large. Meet our artists Nancy Hom, Menaja Ganesh, and Greer Nakadegawa-Lee along with moderator and author Laura Fantone! Nancy Hom is... an award-winning artist, writer, curator, and arts consultant. Born in Toisan, China and raised in New York City, she has been an influential leader in the SF Bay Area art scene since 1974. Over the years, she has created many iconic images for community cultural events as well as political and social causes. Through her posters, poetry, illustrations, installations, large-scale mandalas, and curatorial work, Nancy has used the arts to affirm the histories, struggles, and contributions of communities of color. In addition to pushing artistic boundaries, she has also nurtured the creative and organizational growth of over a dozen Bay Area arts organizations, including Asian American Women Artists Association. In her long involvement with Kearny Street Workshop, an Asian American arts organization, Nancy served as its Executive Director from 1995 to 2003. Menaja Ganesh’s work explores language, identity, ritual, and belonging through the macro and microcosmic socio-political lens of India. Rooted in a practice of ceremony, Menaja critiques hegemonic structures and institutions, and on a more personal level, their relationship to their skin and multiple homelands, through the telling of histories inherited from their family. Menaja combines the curatorial practice of bookmaking, with printmaking, photography, and writing. Greer Nakadegawa-Lee is 16 years old and a junior at Oakland Technical High School. She has written a poem every day for over two years now, and she is the 2020 Oakland Youth Poet Laureate. Her first chapbook , "A Heart Full of Hallways" is out now with Nomadic Press. Greer writes poetry that is both a demand for us to all critically examine the world around us and an intimate personal exploration of her own deepest thoughts and experiences. Laura Fantone is an Italian political and social scientist. She holds an M.A. in Gender and Women' s Studies and a Ph.D. in Social Research. Her research and activism revolve around immigration, forced migration and refugees and urban issues, gender equality, technology, and diversity. She teaches at the University of California Berkeley. Her recent publications include Local Invisibilities, a book on Asian American feminist artists in California,(Palgrave, 2018) Queer and PostColonial feminisms, with Paola Bacchetta (2016) two documentaries on globalization and anti-fascism. Re-sisters and R/Esistenze, both available online.

Last but not least are the curators who will also be reading at tomorrow's ILLUMINATE poetry and open mic event. Join us as we hear Asian American women read their words and we work towards uplifting our communities. Lauren Ito is a Gosei (fifth generation person of Japanese ancestry) poet, community craftswoman, and organizer committed to advancing equity through art and design. As an artist and organizer Lauren delves into the tensions inherited within diasporic experiences..., including explorations of American concentration camps, political agency, and home. Lauren’s work has been featured by The San Francisco Public Library, The Seattle Times, Japanese American National Museum, and various performance venues. Greer Nakadegawa-Lee is 16 years old and a junior at Oakland Technical High School. She has written a poem every day for over two years now, and she is the 2020 Oakland Youth Poet Laureate. Her first chapbook , "A Heart Full of Hallways" is out now with Nomadic Press.

We've officially extended the deadline! You know have until November 15 to submit your artwork for #SowingAgency. Follow our profile link for more details.

AAWAA member Kimi Taira invites you to join a panel discussion with Dr. Renee Ater, Brent Leggs, and Ada Pinkston on the ethical dilemmas of participating in the preservation of contested monuments. https://learning.culturalheritage.org/p/contested-monuments

Sunday October 25, 12:30PM - 1:45PM Duration: 35 minutes without intermission Location: Eucalyptus Grove Circle... AAWAA artist member Judy Shintani invites everyone to her exhibition which explores the connections we can make across time, culture, space? This is their American story - Japanese American incarcerees, Native American children, and those detained at the US-Mexico border. Be immersed in a sound healing meditation and hear the stories of children imprisoned. Register Here: https://buff.ly/2IlYQi7

Join Emerging Curators Program alum Katie Quan of This Asian American Life and our friends at API Cultural Center- San Francisco tonight for an epic discussion with a great lineup of artists on protest art and how artists are surviving in our current times.

Support our friends at Kundiman and fellow Asian American artists by checking out their annual fundraiser and silent auction! One of the pieces up for grabs is a painting by our own artist member Cindy Shih Artist. Auction ends tomorrow!

Saturday Poetry Penpals Saturday, October 24 @ 11:00AM | Virtual Zoom AAWAA artist member Flo Oy Wong invites everyone to a Hoisan-Wa ‘Talk Story’ Poetry Performance with herself and other Poets Genny Lim, Nellie Wong, and the Del Sol String Quartet : Join Cupertino Poet Laureate Jing Jing Yang as she hosts this special event blending poetry and music!... Register Here: https://bit.ly/CPL102420

AAWAA artist member Lydia Nakashima Degarrod is one of the Bay Area artists featured in an exhibition celebrating de Young museum’s 125th anniversary hosted by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Buy your tickets to the 'de Young Open,' a juried community art exhibition of submissions by artists who live in the Bay Area today!

BIPOC Surviving Predominantly White Institutions This weekly, five-part series is for Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) only and comprises of a two-part, Wednesday Forum Fessions and Saturday Processing Sessions. Sessions will include content from the artEquity staff, alumni, and program partners: Emilya Cachapero, Mica Cole, Patricia Garza, Kathy Hsieh, Leslie Ishii, Ginger Klee, Peter J. Kuo, Andi Meyer, Carmen Morgan, Tariana Navas-Nieves, Dat Ngo, Mauricio Salgado, Quita Sullivan, Lauren E. Turner, and others! Register Here: https://buff.ly/3nSGaHe

Hope for the Future Wednesday, October 14, @7:00- 8:00pm Virtual Zoom... On October 14th, join us for the next free presentation of Open Show Santa Cruz, brought to you in your living room or wherever you may be! Three different photographers make artistic and poignant statements about the struggles, along with the eternal beauty and hope, found in Santa Cruz. Maria Isabel LeBlanc "De La Luz" Matthew Zachary "A Beginner's Eye" Lucien Kubo "Hope for the Future" The photographers will share their images and take chat questions from the audience. Admission is free. Advance registration required. Register Here: http://www.openshow.org/en/santacruz

#throwback to the opening to Agrarianaa at SOMArts in 2019 when Sama Sama Cooperative performed Ritwal ng Punla, inspired by traditional indigenous Filipinx dance rituals connecting woman, spirit and earth. In celebration of Indigenous People's Day, we encourage folks to consider contributing beyond land acknowledgements throughout the year. Learn and acknowledge the land you reside on: http://native-land.ca/ Rematriate the land and support its return to indigenous people: h...ttps://sogoreate-landtrust.org Share your agency and story in connection with the changing climate and the Earth. Call for Entries Open - Sowing Agency: Seeding the Future for Environmental Justice

Sowing Agency is inspired by Asian Pacific Islander leaders fighting for environmental justice. Our communities are underrepresented in climate conversations, but this crisis impacts all of us differently across intersections of language, class, spirituality, cultural practices, geography, citizenship and indigeneity. We seek work that responds to the following: How might we go about seeding the future and seeding freedom as Vandana Shiva writes? What are our roles in the... fight for environmental justice? Who are the leaders in our communities resisting the industries polluting our bodies, the air, water and soil? How do power, wealth and opportunity impact our relationship with the Earth? How might we restore that which has been stolen? Can we? What can re-emerge, when we reflect on our kinship with the environment: ancestral, immigrant, refugee, indigenous, women, queer, trans and otherwise? How can we acknowledge and heal from climate grief in order to regenerate awareness and resilience? This is a space to sow agency on the issues affecting the health, safety, and sacred futures of our human and non-human communities. Questions? Email [email protected]

Proud of Kamala Harris for representing South Asian women! And oh look, a featured immigrant stories tweet by our own artist member Cindy Shih Artist.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for our RECLAIM THE VOTE! Live Postcard-Making Party event on Saturday! Poetry and art-making was such a wonderful way to spend the afternoon. Here's a snapshot of some of the postcards made by our attendees. Thanks again to So Seng from Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN) for talking to us about important upcoming election measures. Checkout their voting guide! Lots of gratitude to Lauren Ito of Political Inheritance for bringing us poets Greer Nakadegawa-Lee, Jenny Qi, and Dena Rod whose words touched and inspired all of us. Hope you all continue to make those postcards and don't forget to tag us so we can share them. And of course, remember to VOTE!