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| | USAAF 2024 Kick-Off Event & Where Is Your Body Exhibition
USAAF 2024 Kick-Off Event & Opening Reception: Thursday, April 25, 6:00–9:00 pm
Exhibition Run: April 25–May 24
Closing Reception: Fri, May 24, 6:00–9:00 pm
at SOMArts Gallery, 934 Brannan Street, San Francisco, CA 94103 (map)
Where is Your Body highlights the body and its needs as the lowest common denominator for solidarity. Thinking of the body – in its capacities and vulnerabilities – as a site of both violence and resistance, the exhibition gathers women/trans/queer artists of API diasporic experience engaged in practices of the body to explore questions of labor, memory, and desire. Rather than gesturing towards an identarian collectivity, the racial and gendered angle of the exhibition recognizes how systems of disenfranchisement are interlocked, co-constituting, and mutually sustaining.
The participating artists denaturalize and historicize these intersections, reflecting personal and communal responses to the violence of contemporary life that we each endure quietly. Their work, variously negotiating shades of abstraction and figuration, engaging durational embodied processes, or employing documentary aesthetics, maps the bounds and limits of the body and charts attempts at reaching beyond, towards a future, or each other.
Participating Artists:
- Delaney Chieyen Holton (Curator)
- Nibha Akireddy
- Erina Alejo
- Sholeh Asgary
- Bhasha Chakrabarti
- Edi Dai
- Theo/Tina Kashiwagi
- Learning Palestine
- Private Practices Collection (via Kayla Tange and Hailey Loman)
- Thuong Hoai Tran
- Kim Ye
- Rachel Youn
Special Programming:
Saturday, May 4, 1:30–3:30 pm
Artist Workshop with Chia Amisola
Chia Amisola will give a hybrid performance and participatory workshop on digital ritualmaking, gathering, and identity. Chris Giang will offer tea service using handmade ceramic teaware during the event.
Saturday, May 18, 1:30–3:30 pm
Tattoo Ritual with Kelsey Chen
Kelsey Chen will offer flash stick and poke tattoos for visitors on a first come first served basis. Chris Giang will offer tea service using handmade ceramic teaware during the event. | Buy Tickets |
| | Afro Asian Futures
Saturday, May 18
7:00 pm
at Medicine for Nightmares Bookstore & Gallery, 3036 24th Street, San Francisco, CA 94110 (map)
Afro Asian Futures is a musical performance with The Deciphering Broken Rhythms Collective. This musical performance will explore how technology can be used to liberate and expand upon the cultural narratives of communities of color rather than be used as a tool for displacement and oppression.
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The Deciphering Broken Rhythms Collective is a musical group that combines elements from both African American and Asian American musical traditions through a futuristic lens. The ensemble integrates emerging technologies within their compositions to liberate and expand upon the cultural narratives of communities of color. | Buy Tickets |
| | Queering Biryani
Monday, May 20
6:30–9:30 pm
at The Ruby, 2507 Bryant Street, San Francisco, CA 94110 (map)
Queering Biryani is a cooking class and supper club, hosted by Zara Ahmed, a queer/trans Pakistani cultural practitioner and creator.
To “queer” the iconic South Asian spicy, ricy dish “biryani” means to worship the magical burst of spice and comfort that a bite of biryani provides, keeping inclusivity and accessibility in mind (which is why we’re highlighting an adaptable vegan recipe).
At this event, Zara will hold space for an all “queer and trans” group while offering a cooking demo for vegan biryani, followed by a collective meal. The evening will include a discussion grounded in food as ancestral medicine, and participants will go home with a house-made biryani spice blend!
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Zara Ahmed (they/them) is a non-binary Pakistani cultural practitioner based on the unceded land of the Ohlone people (Oakland, California). Zara is passionate about food justice and amplifying ancestral wisdom through storytelling, healing spaces, and community building. | Buy Tickets |
| | Understudy: Discovering Asian American Radicals Through Poetry
Saturday, May 25
2:30–5:30 pm
at Medicine for Nightmares Bookstore & Gallery, 3036 24th Street, San Francisco, CA 94110 (map)
Curated by five emerging Asian-American artists, "Understudy: Discovering Asian American Radicals Through Poetry'' is an archival project & generative writing workshop dedicated to illuminating AAPI narratives in our communities.
This event is an invitation for community members to engage with the archives and write in conversation with our shared histories of belonging, otherness, oppression, mutual aid, and identity-making through the arts.
The artists will also distribute a zine with original pieces generated throughout the archival process, crafted to serve as a keepsake and educational resource for the participants’ continued exploration of the archives.
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Understudy is composed of five writers whose mission is to create an anti-imperialist Asian American gathering space to share archival knowledge about Asian American communities throughout the Bay Area. By sharing our own work and leading generative workshops, we aim to inspire active forms of community solidarity through writing. | Buy Tickets |
| | Duck Soup
Saturdays, June 8 & 15, 11:00 am–12:00 pm & 3:00–4:00 pm; Sunday, June 9, 11:00 am–12:00 pm & 3:00–4:00 pm
at Bindlestiff Studio, 185 6th Street, San Francisco, CA 94103 (map)
Duck Soup is an immersive theater experience for children and families at Bindlestiff Studio. The one-hour show will engage the audience by guiding them to various sections of the theater, where they will witness short stories brought to life through captivating puppet performances.
The title of the show, "Duck Soup", is Depression-era slang for something that's "easy to do" or a "piece of cake." No actual ducks will be cooked. Tickled perhaps, but not cooked!Ω
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Ramon Abad (he/his) is a Filipino American puppeteer, artist, and teacher based in San Francisco, CA – unceded Ramaytush Ohlone land.
Since the mid '90s to present day, he has performed solo puppet shows at Bay Area Filipino American festivals and events. His current puppet booth project Tito Ramon’s Pop-Up Puppet Show was the first puppet show performed at Kapwa Gardens post COVID-19 lockdown. Since 2021, Ramon has been a resident artist of Balay Kreative, a collective of Filipino American artists based in SOMA Pilipinas, San Francisco. | Buy Tickets |
| | My Ancestors' Worst Dream
Saturday, June 22
12:00–3:00 pm
at Bindlestiff Studio, 185 6th Street, San Francisco, CA 94103 (map)
This groundbreaking comedy event shines a light on the crab mentality, where individuals attempt to pull down those striving for success. We invite you to laugh and challenge societal norms in a space where risks are embraced, cultural understanding is deepened, and gather the courage to confront our collective "shadows." Let's have some fun on the One Day... we AREN'T...a Safe Space.
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Oliver Saria, Kevin Camia, Conrad Panganiban, and J.O.W.Y. (all: he/him) are multidisciplinary artists who, under the intense pressure of debuting a show in just four weeks without a plan, alchemized a stupid joke into a real idea. They pay homage to the Ancestors in the most unconventional way: by embracing their true selves. | Buy Tickets |
| | APICC x Sunday Streets Showcase
Sunday, June 23
1:00–4:00 pm
at Golden Gate Avenue cross Jones and Hyde Streets, San Francisco, CA 94102 (map)
The Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center (APICC) is partnering with Sunday Streets and Liveable City to host the APICC x Sunday Streets Showcase at Sunday Streets Tenderloin. Join us for an afternoon of performances and activations along two car-free city blocks for the whole community to enjoy!
Featured APICC artists will include:
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dNaga Dance Co. is based in Oakland, CA and was founded in 2001 by Claudine Naganuma. The company has performed within the United States, China, Japan, and Spain. With members residing in New York & California, our work employs art as a tool for healing.
Johnny Huy Nguyễn is a Viet-American dance artist and son of refugees. His works excavate memory, possibility, and healing into the present while examining themes of inheritance, masculinity, and becoming. He is a 2023 USAAF Featured Artist, 2022 Isadora Duncan Awardee, 2022 500 Capp Street Resident Artist, and 2019 APAture Featured Artist.
Sun Park is a visual artist, writer, and more recently, a stand-up comedian, based in San Francisco. Park holds an MFA from SFSU, was a fellow at Kearny Street Workshop’s Interdisciplinary Writer’s Fellowship, is a member of the Dong Ji Collective, and has presented work at SFAC Main Gallery, /room/ (slash), and Southern Exposure, among others.
Swetha Prabakaran Productions & Nirmathi partnered to create “The Panchakanyas Project”. Combining Eastern & Western musical traditions with pan-South Asian dance traditions, this multidisciplinary artistic collaboration spotlights the underappreciated strength and grace of South Asian women through history–both on the stage and the silver screen. | Buy Tickets |
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Welcome to the 27th United States of Asian America Festival!
The Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center is excited to present a range of exhibitions, screenings, readings, and performances that showcase the artistry and vision of San Francisco's Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. This is a partial listing of events. For the full calendar, please visit the APICC website.
COVID-19 Policy:
To protect our immunocompromised community members, please stay home if you are feeling unwell.
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