- Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center (APICC)
presents the 22nd annual United States of Asian America Festival, a two-month showcase
highlighting the experiences of local Asian Pacific Islander (API) artists and communities.
Beginning May 2 and coinciding with Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, the festival
bridges together over 25 producing artists to celebrate the breadth and cultural impact of API
art-making. This year’s selected Featured Artist is comedian Irene Tu, who will perform Rest In
Peace Irene, a hybrid storytelling and stand-up show. Comprising a total of nineteen community
art events, the festival will also present readings by Jason Bayani and Kearny Street
Workshop, a food and storytelling program by The Rooted Recipes Project, a visual and
performing arts showcase by Resilience Archives, and a day of hula, song, and oral
storytelling with `Ulumau Collective.
This year’s festival theme of Collective // Memories stands as a powerful statement of
recognition for the tragic losses and critical legacies of long-time leaders in the Bay Area’s API
and arts communities. “Through the festival, I want to provide spaces for community
remembrance and grieving,” says Melanie Elvena, APICC’s Artistic Director, “where we can
collectively heal as we honor the countless contributions of those who have come before us.
Especially this past year, we have lost significant artists and activists like Peter Yamamoto,
historian and scholar Dr. Dawn Mabalon, and most recently San Francisco Public Defender Jeff
Adachi. I want our communities to be inspired by their legacies, so that we can critically reflect
and imagine the different pathways and futures we are building.”
Responding to this need for collective healing, this year’s festival artists present work that
examines themes of loss, lineage, and legacy. For Kearny Street Workshop, the nation’s first
multidisciplinary API arts organization, Collective // Memories means bearing collective witness
to the lives and losses under violent regimes. For `Ulumau Collective, to remember is to invoke
Pacific Islander storytelling traditions. For The Rooted Recipes Project, memory-making is
something ongoing and shared, a collaborative process of culinary and cultural exchange.
Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center (APICC) presents the 22nd annual United States of Asian America Festival, a two-month showcase highlighting the experiences of local Asian Pacific Islander (API) artists and communities. This year’s selected Featured Artist is comedian Irene Tu, who will perform Rest In Peace Irene, a hybrid storytelling and stand-up show.
Beginning May 2 and coinciding with Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, the festival bridges together over 25 producing artists to celebrate the cultural impact of APIart-making.
This year’s festival theme of Collective Memories stands as a powerful statement for the tragic losses and critical legacies of long-time leaders in the Bay Area’s API and arts communities. Responding to this need for collective healing, this year’s festival artists present work that examines themes of loss, lineage, and legacy.
For more information, click here.
WHEN: May 2, 2019 - June 22, 2019
WHERE: Various Venues, San Francisco
