Past Events

Spring 2011 - Highlights

Youth Artist Ceramics Workshop taught by artist Yvonne Lung. All photos by Annie Seng.

SPRING 2011 featured an exciting array of projects that highlighted the diversity of our community. In our Theater, in addition to co-presenting with spoken-word duo Yellow Rage our open mic series FAMILY STYLE, we hosted the B-boy Jam MAKE IT COUNT where contestants competed and showed off their fast-paced, fun-filled dance skills. We also presented classically trained composter Qian Li’s PERCUSSING DIFFERENCE performance, which featured performance fusing Balinese gamelan, Japanese taiko, and Western contemporary styling. Finally, we co-presented DAKSHINA and the Daniel Phoenix Singh Dance Company at the Painted Bride Art Center, a performance blending the classic Bharata Natyam Indian dance form with modern dance choreography.

In our Gallery, we presented INSCRUTABLE, a dual site exhibition and partnership with the University of Delaware that engaged multiple generations of artists to show works concerned with articulating Asian identity in our contemporary landscape. We followed that with two photography and oral history projects: a favorite from our permanent collection--CHINATOWN LIVE(S), a collection of black & white photography portraits by Rodney Atienza, and the HOUSING IS A HUMAN RIGHT installation The Office of Human Rights in our next door space as well as a weeklong artist residency chock full of oral history interviews, interviewing workshops, a town hall meeting, documentary sneak preview, and panel discussion.

Finally, as always we hosted Youth Lounge weekly on-site as well as off-site Youth Arts workshops at Taggart Elementary School and South Philadelphia high schools throughout the spring. To all who came out to Asian Arts Initiative this past spring, thanks for being a part of a wonderful season!


Breaking it down at MAKE IT COUNT B-Boy jam. 


Some of the crowd at the Housing is a Human Right-hosted town hall meeting.