Creating Space for Asian American History through Art

Creating Space for Asian American History Through Art

Co-hosted by the APA Asian and Pacific Islander Interest Group

How can art and planning come together to create space for remembrance, celebration, and connection? Join us for a 90-minute conversation with artists and cultural organizers who are reimagining how Asian American histories are preserved and shared through creative practice.

This panel brings together:

ponnapa prakkamakul, an artist and landscape architect whose creative placekeeping projects in Boston’s Chinatown center on co-creation with community members. She will share how these projects advocate for residents to speak up about gentrification and displacement, using art as a platform for dialogue, resilience, and collective voice.

Jasmine Chu works with Colorado Asian Pacific United, where as Programs and Communications Manager she leads community-centered collaborations that bring together urban planning, public art, and historic preservation. Her work to re-activate Denver’s once-erased Chinatown demonstrates how deep partnership and storytelling can restore cultural memory and inspire civic change.

Hao Huang is a concert pianist whose evolution from classical musician to transart performance creator, including podcast narrator, multiarts event producer, and cultural festival director, was driven by a desire to make art for Asian American communities during and after COVID. His multidisciplinary projects, such as the podcast Blood on Gold Mountain and the LA Hungry Ghost Festival, bring forgotten histories to life through performance, sound, and community ritual.

Together, these artists will discuss how art can serve as both a record and a reimagining of place, revealing how communities can tell their own stories even when the physical traces of history are gone. Moderated by the APA Arts and Planning Division and APA Asian and Pacific Islander Interest Group, the conversation will explore how planners, artists, and communities can collaborate to build civic spaces that honor the past while creating room for joy and celebration.

APA CM .75

Active APA Arts and Planning Division members qualify for a free member-rate ticket. If you're not a member, you can join our division (with or without an APA membership): https://arts.planning.org/membership/.

APA Asian and Pacific Islander Interest Group members also qualify for a free member-rate ticket. You can learn more about joining the interest group here: https://www.apiplanning.org/Join.

Non-members of either division are asked to purchase a paid ticket.

The Arts and Planning division is committed to high-quality programming that advances the arts and planning field. We provide stipends to our presenters and rely on membership and non-member fees to support our events. You can email us at artsandplanningdivision@gmail.com if you have any questions about membership!

Speaker Bios

ponnapa prakkamakul พรนภา ปรักกมกุล 陳可意 (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist and landscape architect based in Massachusetts. Inspired by her multicultural background, ponnapa’s work explores the relationship between humans and their environment, focusing on cultural displacement and a sense of belonging. Using found materials foraged from landscapes and stories collected from local communities, ponnapa aims to create place-specific artwork that tells stories of the place and amplifies voices from those communities. ponnapa holds a Master’s degree in Landscape Architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design and is a landscape architect at Sasaki.

Jasmine Chu (she/her) is a public humanities practitioner passionate about the healing power of storytelling, creative place-making, and cultural connection. As the Programs and Communications Manager at Colorado Asian Pacific United, she champions projects that spark imagination, nurture resilience, and build spaces of belonging through community collaboration. Drawing on her multi-racial background and experiences in cultural centers, museums, youth organizations, and hospitals, Jasmine brings a distinctive perspective to every endeavor. Outside of work, you can find her enjoying Colorado’s art scene or on a quest for the best dim sum in town.

Dr. Hao Huang (he/him) is the Bessie and Cecil Frankel Endowed Chair in Music at Scripps College. He served as a United States Information Agency Artistic Ambassador on several overseas tours to Europe, Africa and the Middle East. He was also a Fulbright Scholar at Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary. Responding to anti-Asian American violence during the COVID pandemic, Huang initiated and produced multiarts performance projects including the UCLA Chancellor’s Arts Initiative Award “Chinatown Elegy” event commemorating the 150th anniversary of the 1871 LA Chinatown Massacre; also the National Endowment of the Arts Grant for Arts Project, “American Dreams: Asian Nightmares” at the USC Pacific Asia Museum.