SF artists’ Asian America Festival goes on until June 30

Reimagining Horizons, features artist Caroline Cabading, who brings together the past and present, exploring pre-colonial artistry as a way to forge new possibilities for community engagement and cultural connection. CONTRIBUTED

SAN FRANCISCO – Each year since 1998, the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center of San Francisco has held the United States of Asian America Festival, from April 27 – June 30 at various locations in San Francisco, to highlight the artistic accomplishments and cultural diversity of the city’s Pacific Islander and Asian American communities.

This year’s theme, Reimagining Horizons “honors the constant negotiation of the past and present to build towards a generative future in solidarity with our BIPOC communities.”

This year, the festival continues this artistic legacy with featured performances by Johnny Huy Nguyễn and Caroline Cabading. Attendees can also immerse themselves in a new multimedia exhibition entitled Jade Wave Rising: Portraits of Power, in collaboration with the Asian American Women Artists Association.

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In addition, APICC co-presents Being, Belonging & Beyond – SF Bay Area AAPI Dance Film Festival with 500 Capp Street and Center for Asian American Media (CAAM). It is working with Sunday Streets and Liveable City to present its Outdoor Showcase in the Tenderloin, helping to provide resources to the neighborhood’s Southeast Asian communities and to support economic recovery in the city.

This year’s festival calendar can be found at www.apiculturalcenter.org/usaaf2023.

REMAINING FESTIVAL EVENTS

Jade Wave Rising: Portraits of Power | Curated by Yeu Q Nguyen and Co-Presented by Asian American Women Artists Association (multidisciplinary art exhibition) SOMArts Cultural Center’s Main Gallery through May 21st. As the AAPI community reels from the ongoing waves of hate and violence, Jade Wave Rising celebrates Asian American and Pacific Islander women’s voices and pays homage to overlooked historical figures and community leaders. Inspired by the gemstone’s various metaphysical and cultural meanings in its association with power, jewelry and crowns, Jade Wave Rising establishes new legacies of leadership to imagine a more equitable future for AAPI women everywhere.

No Country For Mother | Johnny Huy Nguyễn (USAAF 2023 Featured Artist / dance, theater)
Joe Goode Annex on May 26. Exploring personal histories, matriarchal myths, and Vietnamese mother goddess religion, No Country For Mother is an autobiographical reckoning and reconciling toward an embodied masculinity untethered by dominant narratives of manhood.

USAAF: REIMAGINING HORIZONS Outdoor Showcase

Co-Presented by Sunday Streets and Liveable City
Sunday Streets Tenderloin on June 4. Join us for a day of music, poetry, fashion, art-making, performances and more! Featured APICC artists include Caroline Cabading, Parivar Bay Area, SPULU, Shikha Malaviya, Maw Shein Win, Preeti Vangani, and Terry Lily Hwang. More Tenderloin artists and performers will be announced.