New Narratives: The Collective Imaginary - Opening Reception

Through arts, culture, and education, the Pao Arts Center brings together community members across generations to reclaim a critical piece of Chinatown history and to create healthy families and vibrant communities. In partnership with Bunker Hill Community College, BCNC opened the Pao Arts Center in 2017 to be Chinatown’s first community-based arts center and Boston’s newly dedicated Asian American and Asian immigrant cultural space.The Pao Arts Center sits on a historically significant piece of land, Parcel 24, where hundreds of Chinatown residents were displaced in the 1960s in order to build a highway on ramp. The reclamation of this land as a place to celebrate and explore Asian culture represents a powerful shift towards community oriented development in the face of rapid change.

Pao Arts Center

Join Pao Arts Center, Curator Leslie Anne Condon, and exhibiting artists as we celebrate the opening of  "The Collective Imaginary".

Our ability to dream and imagine our futures is greatly influenced by how we interpret our AAPI histories. Dreaming of more just and equitable realities can transform whole neighborhoods, communities, and societies, but we can only envision more inclusive and expansive social structures if we fully account for the conditions of our present and past, alongside other historically subordinated communities. This segment of the exhibition features artists who address aspects of our present society and also help us dream of better futures. Join Pao Arts Center, Curator Leslie Anne Condon, and artists Yanni Niki Li, Ponnapa Prakkamakul, Micah Rose, Jessica TranVo, and Tran Vu as we celebrate the opening of The Collective Imaginary on view at our gallery.Exhibit OpeningDate: Friday, May 276:00 - 8:00 pm Free, Suggested Donation $10Contact: Leslie Condon, Leslie.Condon@bcnc.net, 617-863-9080 x 2017

About the ArtistsYanni Niki Li is a Chinese artist and designer who works primarily in graphic arts. Li’s work is based on the reflection of globalization on people&#x27;s mindsets and contemporary ideologies. Li mainly uses the language of graphics to create an open dialogue on cultural appropriation, cross-cultural misinterpretation and consumerism. Her artwork initiates a conversation with the audience and arouses their contemplation on the social issues that permeate our daily life.Currently working passionately as a graphic designer in New York City, Niki holds an MFA degree from The School of The Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University.Ponnapa Prakkamakul - As a painter and a landscape architect, site investigation and immersion play an important role in Ponnapa’s work. She explores sites and environments using the painting process as a tool to experience, understand, and form connections with her surroundings. Ponnapa art reflects her immersive experience engaging with the landscape through the performative acts of searching, studying, and collecting natural materials to paint with, as well as sketching in situ. In the studio, the collected materials such as soil, plant, groundwater, and rust from found objects are applied on paper as the painting medium depicting the landscape scenes where they were assembled from. These natural materials represent the real colors of the earth and texture of the leaves connecting the viewers back to the site. This painting process not only creates a connection between Ponnapa and the site but also fosters a deeper connection to new places as an immigrant – through art she cultivate her sense of place in this new land.Micah Rose (they/them) is a poet/community organizer who descends from Philippine islands and “American” farmlands. They sing for their ancestors—blood and otherwise—who could not. They co-founded Asian American Theatre Artists of Boston and serve on the steering committee of Boston’s Asian Pacific Islander Arts Network. They also serve on StageSource’s Board Advisory Council, where they work to advance gender inclusion in New England Theatre. Performance credits include Akeelah and the Bee (Arena Stage) and shows at Boston University. Assistant Directing credits include Sara Porkalob’s Dragon Cycle at American Repertory Theater. As a writer, Rosegrant performs their spoken word in communities across the Boston area including BCYF Grove Hall Senior Center, Hibernian Hall, and UMass Boston; their poems are published/forthcoming in The Wave and Marías at Sampaguitas; their plays have been produced by MaArte Theatre Collective and developed by Boston University, where he is pursuing a BFA in Theatre Arts with a concentration in Sociology. twitter/ig: @michael_aroseJessica TranVo is a Boston, Massachusetts based artist that works in collages/mixed media. She has Bachelor degrees in Fine Art, English Literature, and a minor in Art History. She collages digitally or on paper with found images, sometimes using paints. Anxiety and escapism is a recurrent theme through her surrealistic collages. As a bilingual and bisexual Vietnamese American artist, she finds space for first-generation anachronisms from neither here nor there.Ngoc-Tran Vu (she/her) is a Vietnamese-American interdisciplinary artist and organizer whose socially engaged work draws from her experience as a community organizer, facilitator, and healer. Tran moves between mediums and materials to work in photography, painting, sculpture and social practice so that her art can best resonate and engage with its audience intentionally. Born in Vietnam, Tran came to the United States with her family as political refugees and grew up in Boston&#x27;s Dorchester and South Boston working-class neighborhoods. She received her MA in Arts and Politics at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and her BA in Ethnic Studies and Visual Arts at Brown University. Tran works across borders and is based in Boston’s Dorchester community. www.tranvuarts.com

About the CuratorLeslie Anne Condon is a Boston-area multidisciplinary artist and independent curator, interested in Critical Race Art History and issues of representation within the arts. She graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a degree in English and a minor in the Fine Arts. She briefly attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts as a Diploma student and earned her Post Baccalaureate in Fine Art 3D from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2011.About the Partners Unbound Visual Arts (UVA) is a unique Allston-Brighton-based non-profit art organization. We serve the Greater Boston community with impactful educational programs and exhibits to encourage learning, engagement, and change.

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New Narratives: The Collective Imaginary - Opening Reception

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