May 1 - 31

Remembering 1882: Fighting for Civil Rights in the Shadow of the Chinese Exclusion Act

presented by the Chinese Historical Society of America
co-presented by Kearny Street Workshop

In 1882 Congress passed the nation's first immigration legislation—a law to prevent people of Chinese descent from entering the United States.  The law would tear apart families and cut the nation's Chinese American population in half while removing their right to become US citizens.

Remembering 1882 commemorates the 125th anniversary of the Exclusion Act by exploring the historical debate from its origins through its full repeal in 1968, the civil rights struggle of Chinese Americans and their allies, and the historic importance of habeas corpus in the Chinese American community.

The Chinese Historical Society of America and the Historical Society for the Northern District of California invite you to an exploration of the impacts and legacies of Exclusion:

Remembering 1882 PANEL & RECEPTION
May 9, 4:30 – 6:30 pm
Ceremonial Courtroom of the Northern California District Court, 450 Golden Gate, 18th Floor, San Francisco. Featuring Justice Harry Low, Law Professor Bill Ong Hing, Immigration Attorney Donald Ungar, and Historian Connie Young Yu. Admission is $20/$10 for Students.

The panel will kick-off with a specially crafted Museum Theater performance: A Statement for Non-Exclusion featuring Dr. Ng Poon Chew (1866 – 1931), the legendary crusading newspaper editor and leader in the fight against Exclusion.

Remembering 1882 TRAVELING EXHIBITION
May 1—11
Phillip Burton Federal Building, Northern California District Court, 450 Golden Gate, 18th Floor, San Francisco
May 14—31
James R. Browning Courthouse, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, 95 Seventh Street, 1st Floor, San Francisco

Thursday, May 3, 2007

Post I.D.
identity-infused art for a post-identity world

opening reception

Join Kearny Street Workshop and the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center for the opening reception of a new visual exhibition, Post ID: identity-infused art for a post- identity world. Featuring work by artists Jenifer Wofford, Mark Baugh-Sasaki, Nancy Mizuno Elliott, Richard Godinez, and Sita Bhaumik, this new exhibition explores the nature of identity and hybridity in a range of media and genres, and from multiple multiracial perspectives. In a world that often seems to wish itself to be "beyond race," Post ID invites you to consider the more complicated and intriguing realities. This exhibit runs May 3 - 26, 2007, at SomArts Cultural Center.

Above: Post ID graphic design by Mark Baugh-Sasaki, based on "How to Make Big Hair," gelly roll pen on blackboard slates,2003 by Nancy Mizuno Elliott.

Event: Post ID exhibition opening reception

Dates:
opening reception: Thursday, May 3, 2007
exhibition runs: May 3 - 26, 2007

Times:
Opening reception and APICC festival kick-off: 5 -8pm
Gallery Hours: Tues - Fri, 2 - 7pm; Saturdays 1 - 5pm

Location: SomArts Cultural Center, 934 Brannan Street, San Francisco

Cost: free.

Info: Contact Kearny Street Workshop at info@kearnystreet.org or 415.503.0520, or APICC at info@apiculturalcenter.org or 415.864.4120.

This exhibit is produced in association with the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center.

About the artists:

Mark Baugh-Sasaki was born and raised in San Francisco. He spent his college years in Pittsburgh, PA, while attending Carnegie Mellon University. The city of Pittsburgh had a profound impact on the way he perceived the relationships between humans and their environment. He describes the tenuous relationship in which industry and the natural environment interact with each other through the combination of organic materials and industrial processes and forms, to create an object that illustrates this tension. Since returning to San Francisco he has spent his time creating sculpture that examines the relationship formed between our urban society and the natural environment around us. For more information please visit industrialforest.com.

Image credit: Mark Baugh-Sasaki, Reconstruction, wood and steel, 2004.

An award-winning photographer, writer and artist, Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik is an artist and writer with a severe case of island fever. Although born and raised in Los Angeles, she has lived and worked on three continents and one archipelago. After graduating with a degree in Studio Art, cum laude, from Scripps College, she moved to San Francisco to co-kick-start Free Media Group, dedicated to Bay Area arts and culture. She is an editor at Hyphen Magazine and her writing has appeared such publications as The Onion and TODO. Her work was selected for the 2005 Apature festival and she exhibits in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Sita has exhibited work with MAPP, the Mission Arts and Performance Project, and is an active member of the 24hourshow collective of interdisciplinary Asian American women artists. Sita's work explores the space of representation, hybridity, and pop culture in all its fizzyness. She builds on the meanings of mechanically reproduced objects to explore the spaces between and create the spaces that are absent. It is through a conscious art practice that she believes possibilities in representation create possibilities for existence.

Image credit: Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik, Sunset, Installation with pantyhose in tan, and nude and sunset, dimensions variable, 2004.

Nancy Mizuno Elliott received her Master of Fine Arts with Highest Distinction from the University of Georgia and her Bachelor of Arts from University of California at Berkeley. She recently concluded a two-year visiting artist stint at Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri. She has also taught at various Bay Area institutions including UC Berkeley-Extension, Mission College, Los Medaños College, and Hartnell College. She was an Artist-in-Residence at San Francisco County Correctional Facilities and taught art fundamentals to seniors residing at Alameda Hospital. Currently, she teaches at San Francisco City College. She has extensive experience in non-profit programming, gallery management, and art administration. Most recently, she was the Exhibitions Director at Richmond Art Center and responsible for curating over twenty exhibitions per year. She has exhibited nationally and abroad—Spain, Italy, California, Illinois, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, Michigan, Nor! th Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Alabama, Alaska, Maryland, New York, Colorado, Ohio, Missouri, New Jersey, etc. Honors include C-00 Film Grants, Individual Artist Project Grants (City of Oakland), Alameda County Purchase Awards, Studies Abroad Fellowship, and residencies at The White Colony in Costa Rica, Can Serrat in Spain, Ragdale (Chicago), Hambidge Center (Atlanta), and De Young Museum (San Francisco). Recently, she completed a public arts project sponsored by the Market Street Art in Transit Program Kiosk Poster Series administered by the San Francisco Arts Commission. And last Spring, she gave away over 1000 hand-made butterflies to visitors of recreation centers located in Latino neighborhoods of Oakland. The project, entitled Pura Vida, was funded by the City of Oakland. The City also supported Squawk!: Art Inspired by Oakland Renegade Poets, mixed media paintings exhibited at several Oakland Public Libraries. The City of Emeryville selected her to participate in its Art Along the Avenue program. Her site-specific installation was in an unoccupied storefront on San Pablo Avenue until September 2006. Lastly, she has been chosen by the Alameda County Arts Commission to be included in its rotating art collection. Her work will be shown in various county buildings, beginning with the newly constructed Juvenile Justice Center located in San Leandro, California. The work will illustrate a wide variety of Alameda County poets and lyricists, be they famous or not-so-famous, including text from Juvenile Hall youth.

Image credit: Nancy Mizuno Elliott, How to Make Big Hair, Gelly Roll Pen on Chalkboard Slates, 2003

Richard Godinez is a Bay Area artist and painter who received his BFA degree from San Jose State University and his MFA degree from Stanford University. He has exhibited at the San Jose Center for Latino Arts, D.P. Fong Gallery, the Triton Museum, New College of San Francisco, Galeria de la Raza, and the Matrix Gallery, Sacramento. He was the recipient of grants from the Silicon Valley Arts Council and the Rockefeller Foundation. He was also awarded the first place Juror's prize at the Halpert national Biennial, Appalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina. His work has been reviewed in the Metro, San Jose Mercury News, Artweek magazine, and BlackFlash (Canadian Art Journal). Godinez was also a presenter at the 1994 Annual College Art Association conference, New York, NY.

Image credit: Richard Godinez, FreedomToll (for Henri Alleg), oil on canvas, 2006.

Jenifer and Camille Wofford are Bay Area natives who grew up in Hong Kong,the United Arab Emirates, and Malaysia. The Woffords moved back to California in 1985, and have been problem children ever since.

Jenifer eventually made her way to the San Francisco Art Institute, where she received a BFA in 1995. She receives her MFA from UC Berkeley in May 2007. Her work has been exhibited in the Bay Area at the Richmond Art Center, a.o.v, Babilonia 1808, Southern Exposure, Intersection for the Arts, Dorothy Weiss Gallery, nationally at New Image Art (Los Angeles), the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum (Salt Lake City), the Philippine Consulate (Honolulu), and internationally at Future Prospects (Manila, Philippines), and Galerie Blanche (Mandelieu-La Napoule, France). Since 1995 she has also been 1/3 of the manic, brilliant, highly delusional artist team known as the Mail Order Brides/M.O.B. Jenifer has been awarded artist residencies at The Living Room, Malate, Metro Manila, Philippines, Skidmore College, in Saratoga Springs, New York, and Chateau de la Napoule, Mandelieu-La Napoule, France, 200 Gertrude Street, Melbourne, Australia, and Kunstcentrum Haagweg 4, Leiden, Netherlands. For more information, please visit wofflehouse.com.

Image credit: Jenifer and Camille Wofford, Woffords, Paint, 2006-2007.

Kearny Street Workshop is a multidisciplinary arts organization based in San Francisco's Mission District at KSW's exhibition and arts events space, space180. The mission of Kearny Street Workshop is to produce and present art that enriches and empowers Asian Pacific American communities. Our vision is to achieve a more just society by connecting Asian Pacific American(APA) artists with community members to give voice to our cultural, historical, and contemporary issues. KSW offers a range of programming, from visual arts exhibitions and literary readings to creative writing workshops, a small press, and an annual arts festival. For more information please visit www.kearnystreet.org.

May 9, 16, & 23

Digital Photography Workshop with Jay Jao

KSW is offering a new workshop on digital photography from photographer Jay Jao, AKA mochamonkey.com.

Dates: Wednesdays. May 9, 16, and 23

Time: 7pm to 10pm

Location: 180 Capp Street. San Francisco, Ca.

Registration Fee: $95 regular / $80 KSW members

Space is limited, so register as soon as possible. To register, please send a check made out to Kearny Street Workshop for the full amount and mail to:

Kearny Street Workshop
Attention: Photo Workshop
180 Capp Street, #5
San Francisco, CA 94110

Or register online by clicking on one of the paypal links below:

Registration for non-members:

KSW members, click below:

More information: contact Samantha Chanse at 415.503.0520 or sam@kearnystreet.org.

Course Description

The digital photography accelerated workshop presents basic digital camera handling skills, lighting basics, and post-processing at a quick pace. Learn basic photography controls and techniques to get the most out of your digital camera.

The material covered in this workshop typically takes a minimum of five 3 hour sessions, this course will cover the same material over three 3 hour sessions. Class size will be limited to 9 students to maintain a low student to instructor ratio. Class is a blend of lecture and activities. Homework will be assigned.

Please visit http://workshop.mochamonkey.com/ for equipment requirements, course objectives, and more information.

About the instructor

Jay Jao is a former basic camera handling and beginning b&w darkroom instructor at UC Davis Craft Center. He is the Milpitas Post Publishing contract photographer and a volunteer photographer for local SF non-profit groups. To see more of his work, please visit mochamonkey.com

Saturday, May 12, 2007
Kearny Street Workshop is a community partner for

The Asian Pacific American Book Festival

Free admission, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Japanese American National Museum and
the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy
369 East First Street (corner of 1st and Central in Downtown LA/Little Tokyo)

Organized by the Asian Pacific American Legal Center

Come to this all-day celebration of stories which will transform your life!

Join the Asian Pacific American Legal Center and other book lovers and embrace, share, redefine, and challenge your idea of FAMILY, the theme of our inaugural book festival.

* Book vendors selling one-of-a-kind materials
    * More than 30 authors discussing their works
    * Poetry readings and spoken word performances
    * Children's book presentations
    * Writing workshops for beginners and teens
    * Book signings-the perfect Mother's Day gift!
    * Panels, readings, performances, and workshops-all free!

Open these books and open your world.

For more information and to pre-register for the writing workshops, e-mail: apabookfest@apalc.org or call 213-241-0254.

Click here for a schedule of activities.

Click here for a flyer for the Asian Pacific American Book Festival.

For more information please visit www.apalc.org

May 17, 2007

Two Truths and a Lie: reading and chapbook release

Featuring Karla F. Brundage, Rocky Choi, Farah Gowani, ManChui Leung, Vanessa Merina, Sushil Nachnani, Diane Nguyen, Noelle de la Paz, Rene Yung, and Bushra Rehman

Join Kearny Street Workshop and Bushra Rehman's writing workshop for an evening of readings and the launch of a new chapbook from KSW Press, Two Truths and a Lie. The evening will feature readings by emerging voices from the Bay Area, as well as a small reception to meet the writers and take a look at the new limited-run handbound, hand-printed publication, with original cover design by Amy Woloszyn.

Two Truths and a Liecover design: Amy Woloszyn

Event: Two Truths and a Lie: Reading and Chapbook Release

Date: Thursday, May 17th, 2007

Time: 7 -9pm

Location: The Actor's Center of San Francisco, 180 capp street, 2nd floor, @ 17th street, San Francisco

Cost: $5.

Info: Contact Kearny Street Workshop at info@kearnystreet.org or 415.503.0520

About the artists

KARLA F. BRUNDAGE is a poet, essayist, writer, activist, performer, and teacher. Her poetry has been published in Bamboo Ridge, Konch, Hip Mama, Oahu Review, Intersecting Circles:  Voices of Hapa Women in Poetry and Prose, Adam of Ife:  Black Women in Praise of Black Men, Kaimana, and La’iLa’i.  Her essays have appeared in Bamboo Ridge, Multi-America: Essays on Cultural Wars and Cultural Peace, and Conversations. Some of her writing has been performed on-stage in productions such as The Medea Project, Carving Circles and The Herstories Project .   A recipient of a Fulbright Teacher Exchange Fellowship/Award in 2001, she spent a year teaching in Zimbabwe. Karla received a degree in English Literature from Vassar College, where she studied post-colonial African literature with South African exile Dr. Moses Nkondo.  In 1999, she received her MA in Education from San Francisco State University specializing in Multicultural Curriculum Development and Implementation. Her efforts to effect social change through art include participation in Poetic Protests and teaching poetry to youths in the penal system as well as to women and men in maximum security facilities.   

ROCKY CHOI was born in Oakland and raised in the East Bay.   He enjoys writing and playing soccer.

FARAH GOWANI is a graduate of San Francisco State University where she studied Psychology and Special Needs Education.  She has been heard in Yoni ki baat- an Indian version of the vagina monologues.  She studies web design, volunteers with Narika- a nonprofit for battered women, and does some accounting.  She works as super girl during her free time to try and save the world.

MANCHUI LEUNG is an artist and writer disguised as a non-profit health advocate for the Asian American and Pacific Islander community. Whether conducting leadership trainings, navigating the halls of Capitol Hill, daydreaming in the airport security line, or writing about her observations and experiences as a queer immigrant woman of color, she always finds creative ways to bring forward unique voices, expose injustice and break stereotypes. ManChui is a child of peasants and immigrants who knew how to dream and love big. Conceived after a long night of majong in a Hong Kong high rise apartment, ManChui’s favorite time for creativity – writing poetry, painting protest signs, cooking dumplings, planning campaigns, imagining collages – is when the moon is high in the sky and the people are congregating below bare lightbulbs to sui ye and reminisce about the day.  She has lived in Hong Kong, Vancouver, New York, San Francisco and Oakland travels extensively throughout the U.S. and the Pacific connecting communities and raising awareness of issues such as HIV, health rights, violence and immigrant rights. She loves a good cup of coffee, tropical humid weather, crying during airplane movies, and loud boisterous conversations. 

VANESSA MERINA writes short fiction and essays. She lives in San Francisco where she is at work on a collection of short stories.

SUSHIL NACHNANI grew up in India and has lived in San Francisco for the last fourteen years. He has studied relationships involving Indian women with varying degrees of intimacy, from the disturbing closeness of a frightened lover to the safer distance of a misguided relationship adviser. His inadvertent research has created confusion, some discomfort and now, a collection of short stories, titled "The Teapot Conspiracy."  He is currently working on a piece of creative non-fiction based on his fight with cancer and his encounters with spirituality. He moonlights as an Articles editor for the online Desilit magazine and is the San Francisco Bay Area co-ordinator for Desilit. Sushil pays for his ' daal-roti' by working part-time as a technical architect in a financial institution. He can often be found helping people to take a deep breath in volunteer work with the non-profit Art of Living Foundation. He can be found on the internet at www.nachnani.com. Desilit Magazine is visible at www.desilit.org/magazine. The Art of Living Foundation's website address is www.artofliving.org 

During one summer day after the 8th grade, DIANE NGUYEN walked into a bank to cash her first paycheck.  She credits this early need to leave home for her many future adventures.  She grew up in San Jose unaware of her father ’s schizophrenia until the truth of his illness revealed itself last year.  Her parents, along with her, were refugees after the Vietnam War.  They spent 7 months on a Malaysian island before settling in California.  Diane’s sense of adventure and curiosity for new places landed her in Hanoi for one year. From there, she traveled alone to Thailand and Laos where she experienced her heaven on earth.  At Hanoi’s Foreign Trade University, she taught business English as a volunteer for VIA.  It wasn’t until she read The Count of Monte Cristo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and A Widow for One Year, found in the small library of her guesthouse in Vietnam, did her obsession of words, characters and stories take flame. Diane’s craft began during work hours at a high-tech sales job. Writing funny personal stories was her escape to creativity.  Now she lives in San Francisco, nurturing her craft.   

NOELLE DE LA PAZ was born and raised in San Francisco and wouldn’t have it any other way. This city girl spent four years among the trees, deer, and bike trails of UC Santa Cruz, and emerged with a degree in American Studies. Brief but lasting parts of her life have been spent no Brasil & sa Pilipinas, and are only the beginning of her travels. Currently, she’s back in the city collecting part time jobs in the youth, environmental & human rights, and literary fields, as well as trying to get a gym schedule down or the first time ever. She enjoys word jokes and idioms and has grammatical pet peeves. She wore braces for five years and favored rubber bands in the peaceful shade of neon green. The bottom drawer of her desk hordes ten years of journals and class-notebooks-turned-confessions. Sci-fi, liquid eyeliner, burping, codeswitching, good cafes, ultra fine point sharpies, and hella fresh jewelry rock her socks.

BUSHRA REHMAN ’s mother says Bushra was born in an ambulance flying through the streets of Brooklyn.  Her father is not so sure.  Since there are no definitive records of the time of her birth, there is no real way of knowing, but it would explain a few things.  Bushra is a vagabond poet who traveled for years with nothing more than a greyhound ticket and a book bag full of poems. In her travels, Bushra met Daisy Hernandez and together they edited a book of essays titled Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today ’s Feminism (Seal Press, 2002). Bushra’s poetry has been collected in the chapbook Marianna’s Beauty Salon (Vagabond Press, 2001).  She has been featured in The New York Times, NY Newsday, and on the BBC. Her work has appeared in ColorLines, Mizna, Curve, SAMAR, Voices of Resistance: Muslim Women on War, Faith and Sexuality and Stories of Illness and Healing: Women Write Their Bodies. To read excerpts from her on-the-road desi adventure novel or memoir of being a Pakistani little rascal, visit her website www.bushrarehman.com.

RENE YUNG is an artist, writer, and designer. Her cross-disciplinary works explore issues of culture and community, and language and form. She is at work on a series of narrative essays on transcultural living, and a multimedia theater work on the Transcontinental Railroad. Rene grew up in colonial Hong Kong and in Singapore, and EurailPassed from Fez to Trondheim during her sophomore year, garnering three Incompletes and a babble of languages. She lives in San Francisco where she writes and works with communities to develop cultural projects that address social issues, and battles garden-variety pests in her backyard. On a night of mayhem she launched 38 snails and 14 slugs onto their next lives, and sent 18 more over neighbors’ fences for karmic redemption. Rene received her B.A. in Art from Stanford University, and was a finalist for the Loeb Fellowship at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. She is an alumna of Hedgebrook Writers' Residency Program, the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, Headlands Center for the Arts, and the ksw Intergenerational Writers Lab. A hula dancer, Rene is the recipient of a Creative Work Fund Visual Arts Award, and exhibited in the 46th Venice Biennale.

About the designer

Amy Woloszyn is a NYC transplant, now San Francisco based freelance graphic designer and founder of AmyMade Graphic Design. She has transitioned over the years from commercial work to doing what really motivates her, working with community organizations and individuals striving for social change. After studying graphic design at Pratt in Brooklyn, NY and living on the east coast all her life, she has found new inspiration in the landscapes and personalities of the west coast. She is a lifelong music and craft lover. When she’s not behind the computer, she’s usually pasting fun, glittery things together, painting, playing the keyboard or ripping up a dancefloor. For more information please visit www.amymade.com.

Friday and Saturday, May 18 and 19, 2007

In a heartbeat:
best of APAture

Join Kearny Street Workshop and the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center for two thrilling nights of stellar performances and presentations from some of the Bay Area's most promising artists. Featuring theater performer Sean San Jose, singer-songwriter Odessa Chen, filmmakers Anita Chang and Stuart Gaffney , poet and performer Russell Gonzaga, theater artists Jane and Tair Chen, musical group The Invisible Cities, and poet and musician Denizen Kane, this program condenses the power and dynamism of nearly ten years of APAture into two captivating evenings. Experience the promising talent of the Bay Area and get a headstart on preparing for attending the 9th annual APAture festival in September 2007. This program is curated by APAture 2006 Coordinator Nirmala Nataraj.

Event: Best of APAture, Nights 1 & 2

Night 1, Friday 5/18:
The Bong Bong Projects (Sean San Jose and Jonsen Vitug)
Odessa Chen
Anita Chang
Russell Gonzaga

Night 2, Saturday 5/19:
Jane and Tair Chen
Stuart Gaffney
The Invisible Cities
Denizen Kane

Dates: Friday & Saturday, May 18 & 19, 2007

Time: 8pm

Location: SomArts Cultural Center, 934 Brannan Street, San Francisco

Cost: $13 in advance, $16 at the door

Info: Contact APICC at info@apiculturalcenter.org or 415.864.4120.

This exhibit is produced by the the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center.

About the artists

The Bong Bong Projects is Sean San Jose and Jonsen Vitug, a new group, creating new performance works for theatres and schools. "Tsismis : the dugo dance" was presented in collaboration with Alleluia Panis Dance Company and Kularts at the 2006 and 2007 POMO Festivals. That was the first in a series of pieces including: "Rouge", an original piece; and a new theatrical creation from Jessica Hagedorn's story "The Blossoming of Bongbong." “Tsismis” was performed with Krishtine DeLeon at Apature 2005. Thank you to all who have helped in the development: Locus, KSW, APAture, Intersection,Alleluia Panis and Kularts. In addition to this new work Sean San Jose (left, top) is proud to work for Intersection for the Arts and resident theatre company Campo Santo.

Jonsen Vitug (left) will next perform with Intersection and Campo Santo in the world premiere play "Fe in the Desert" by Jessica Hagedorn beginning in May. www.theintersection.org

ANITA CHANG is an independent filmmaker. She was born to parents who emigrated from Taiwan in the 1960’s, fleeing a dictatorship. She grew up in Ohio and Massachusetts. She has worked as an urban youth counselor, civil rights investigator, and education director for a non-profit San Francisco-based media literacy organization. She has completed artist residencies in Nepal, Headlands Center for the Arts, Taipei Artist Village, and Hweilan International Artist Workshop. In pushing the boundaries of the moving image medium, she is always discovering ways to experiment, inspiring an active viewing experience. She has taught film/video production at Film Arts Foundation, including its STAND program for directors from under- represented backgrounds. She has also taught abroad in Kathmandu, and at the renowned Motion Picture Department at National Taiwan University of Arts. She is currently teaching in the Department of Language and Communication of Indigenous Peoples at Taiwan National Dong Hwa University.

JANE CHEN is a Taiwanese- American actor, singer, and teacher. A graduate of Yale University and the Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre, Jane has created original theater that combines such varied forms as opera, clowning and puppetry. Locally, Jane has performed with Ten Red Hen Productions ({99-cent} Miss Saigon), Opera Piccola/Stagebridge (Being Something, Oakland Metro, dir. Ellen Sebastian Chang) Mugwumpin, Shotgun Players, FoolsFury, Kearny Street Workshop (APAture Festival Featured Artist 2003), PuppetLOVE!, and UC Berkeley (Tarnival!). Jane has taught acting, voice, and theatrical clowning for such organizations as U.C. Berkeley, AAA Summer Camp (Walnut Creek). Splash Circus (Emeryville), and Ten Red Hen (Berkeley). She is the lead soprano for the annual Fremont and Grand Lake Montessori School operas, performing alongside talented 5-12 year-olds. Commercially, Jane is represented by JE Talent and has worked for such companies as Microsoft, Honda, Genentech, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium. She currently teaches private voice lessons in her Oakland home.
TAIR CHEN is a Taiwanese-American performer and computer engineer. Her experience in theater originated in observing and enjoying the rehearsals and performances of her two daughters, which she has done for the past seventeen years. She made an abrupt career change from software engineering to performing arts in 2004, with her starring role as “Mom” in The Chinese Clown Cabaret. In addition to co-creating and performing, Tair also takes on the roles of prop-making, sets, costumes, tour managing, and web maintenance. Her love of the arts has helped her toward a very important purpose: connecting with her daughter, taking part in her life, and helping other mothers across the world re-invest in their relationships with their children. Tair currently resides in New Jersey but commutes to California frequently to rehearse the Chinese Clown Cabaret. She holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science.
The Chinese Clown Cabaret was created in 2004 by mother-daughter team Jane and Tair Chen. Their show premiered at the Dell’Arte Mad River Festival Edgefest in July 2004, followed by the San Francisco Fringe Festival in September 2004. They continued expanding upon their show and their audience base, performing at museums, Christmas parties, baby showers, state conferences, and schools. Last summer Jane and Tair toured Canada, performing in six Fringe festivals and garnering “Best Overall Production” and “Best Concept” awards in Ottawa. They are currently seeking help producing a short silent film. Ask them how you can help, and then ask them to tell you the crazy story of how it all started.

Photo credit: Jay Jao

DENIZEN KANE Denizen Kane is a poet and musician born and raised in Tree City. He is one of the founders of I Was Born With Two Tongues (1998-2003), an Asian American spoken word quartet that played a major role in the current spoken word resurgence. The group toured extensively, independently released an LP, Broken Speak, and helped create an open forum for issues of race, identity, and immigration to be discussed throughout a network of colleges, community groups, and local crews. His poetry has been published in numerous periodicals and anthologies, including the Asian Pacific American Journal, the Columbia Review , Echoes upon Echoes: New Korean American Writings, and Screaming Monkeys. He has also performed on three seasons of Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry Jam. In 2000, Denizen co-founded Typical Cats, a Chicago-based hip hop collective. They have released two LPs through indie imprint Galapagos4—a self- titled debut (2000) and Civil Service (2004), generating an enormous word-of-mouth buzz on the strengths of their stellar live show and stunning on-wax chemistry. Kane made his mark as a solo artist in 2002, with an EP entitled Tree City Legends. His newest LP, Tree City Legends, Volume 2, furthers his reputation as a precocious lyricist, style innovator, and great storyteller-in-the-making. Kane has toured from New York to Tokyo to Los Angeles, and performed with such underground luminaries as the Visionaries, Living Legends, and J-Live. He continues to create, experiment, build, and break away.

Photo courtesy of Jeannie Management.

Stuart Gaffney has been making films and videos about his Asian, Hapa,and Queer identities since 1994. His works have been screened and broadcast worldwide.Stuart was the a Featured Artist at APAture 2001, where he premiered the commissioned work "Transgressions." Many of his short films have screened at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival over the last decade. In 2004, Stuart and his partner of 20 years, John Lewis, were one of the first 10 same-sex couples to marry in San Francisco City Hall, and they are now leaders in the movement for marriage equality and LGBT rights.Stuart was born and raised in Milwaukee. He studied English literature at Yale University, and he works as a Policy Analyst at the University of California, San Francisco's Center for AIDS Prevention Studies.

With a voice that brings together the intimacy of Songs:Ohia and the ethereal force of Sigur Ros or Jeff Buckley, Odessa Chen's music has been described as wintry, intelligent, haunting, and tender. Her debut album, One Room Palace, explores themes of love, longing, beauty and death with accomplished lyrics, a fingerpicking guitar style that is almost classical, and arrangements both sparse and complex. For live shows she is joined by Rich Douthit (of The Drift, Winfred E. Eye) on drums and Devin Hoff (of Nels Cline Singers and Good for Cows) on double bass. She has been interviewed on NPR, has an international audience, and is a guest vocalist on recordings by Charles Atlas and Thee More Shallows. She is currently at work on her second record, The Ballad of Paper Ships. www.odessachen.com.

The Invisible Cities is a San Francisco- based band that makes incandescent rough-around-the-edges sometimes-quiet sometimes-loud pop music. Watertown, their first full-length record was released in 2004 and they are currently finishing up their long- awaited, as yet unnamed second album. In 2005, the Invisible Cities were voted “best indie pop band” by the readers of the San Francisco Bay Guardian.Sometimes they think their music sounds like: landing softly in a new town, things that make you sad but are so beautiful you bring them out again anyway, the part where you kick the trashcan just because you remembered something that pissed you off, the moonlit night where you were far from the city and the stars and the orange and the snow swirled together, the six hour drive on the highway that you don’t hardly remember because you were listening to the radio really loud the whole way down.

May 23rd, 2007

IWL Night 3: Thy Tran, Uchechi Kalu, and IWL participants

A collaboration of Kearny Street Workshop, Intersection for the Arts, and Galería de la Raza

IWL 2007 graphic design by industrialforest.com.

Join Kearny Street Workshop, Galería de la Raza, and Intersection for the Arts for the second night of the 4th annual 2007 Intergenerational Writers Lab, a literary program to explore multiple forms of creative expression and generate new work. The program features three months of workshops led by seven lead artists, and four public readings and performances.

The third public IWL 2007 event is on Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007, at Galeria de la Raza, and features readings and performances from poet and performer Uchechi Kalu, essayist and critic Thy Tran , and IWL 2007 participants Nicole Bohn, Jennifer Chien, Jasmin Darznik, Rebecca Foust, Nirmala Nataraj, and Lata Padmini Nott.

Date: Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007

Time: 7pm

Location: Galeria de la Raza, 2857 24th Street, @ Bryant Street, san francisco

Cost: $5 - 15 sliding scale.

The 2007 Intergenerational Writers Lab is supported by a grant from the Irvine Foundation.

About the artists

Born in Abia State, Nigeria, Uchechi Kalu was raised in Missouri, Texas and Massachusetts and mentored by the late June Jordan at the University of California, Berkeley. She has performed her poetry and taught at universities, high schools, prisons and community centers around the country.  She is also a recipient of a Hedgebrook residency for women writers on Whidbey Island in Washington State.  Her first book, Flowers Blooming Against A Bruised  Gray Sky, was published by Whit Press in Fall 2006. www.uchechikalu.com

Thy Tran writes literary nonfiction about food, its rituals and the many ways it both connects and separates us. Her features have appeared in The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Chronicle. Thy's website, wanderingspoon.com, highlights her travels, while her writings in the culture and history of food have appeared in books such as Asia in the San Francisco Bay Area: A Cultural Travel Guide and the award- winning Kitchen Companion. Trained as a professional chef, she works on cookbooks by day, then creates chapbooks by night. A letterpress and two cabinets of type occupy a corner of her studio, and she is as committed to the art of bookmaking as she is to the power of words themselves.

About the Intergenerational Writers Lab

The 4th Intergenerational Writers Lab (IWL)  2007 is a unique program with three of SF’s oldest arts organizations that challenges writers to thoroughly explore and develop writing. The IWL 2007 program takes place March 10 – July 11, 2007, and features workshops, public readings, and a chapbook publication.  IWL workshops are led by playwrights Octavio Solis and Prince Gomolvilas, essayist and critic Thy Tran, poets Genny Lim and Mahru Elahi, novelist and travel writer Linda Watanabe McFerrin, and poet & performer Uchechi Kalu .

The goals of the IWL program include the following:

1)   to provide twelve local emerging writers with the opportunity to challenge, develop, and expand their writing by working with emerging and established writers in a variety of genres;
2)   to contribute to the development of new literary forms and language that incorporate multiple forms of creative expression;
3)   to provide emerging writers with the opportunity to connect and work with each other and with established writers in the literary world;
4)   to provide the community with an opportunity to engage with new work and new explorations of form and language;
5)   to contribute to the wealth of independent literary publications by publishing a new chapbook from KSW Press, Galería de la Raza, & Intersection for the Arts that highlights work by exciting new writers committed to exploring new forms and voices..

About the Collaborating Organizations

Kearny Street Workshop is a multidisciplinary arts organization based in San Francisco's Mission District at KSW's exhibition and arts events space, space180. The mission of Kearny Street Workshop is to produce and present art that enriches and empowers Asian Pacific American communities. Our vision is to achieve a more just society by connecting Asian Pacific American(APA) artists with community members to give voice to our cultural, historical, and contemporary issues. For more information please visit www.kearnystreet.org.

Galería De La Raza is an interdisciplinary space for art, thought and activism – Galería organizes cutting-edge art exhibitions, as well as multimedia presentations, performances and spoken-word events, screenings, computer-generated murals and educational activities. The Mission of the Galeria de la Raza is to foster public awareness and appreciation of Chicano/Latino art and culture. For more information please visit www.galeriadelaraza.org

Intersection for the Arts is San Francisco's oldest alternative art space (est. 1965) and has a long history of presenting new and experimental work in the fields of literature, theater, music, dance and the visual arts, and also in nurturing and supporting the Bay Area's cultural community through service, technical support, and mentorship programs. Intersection provides a place where provocative ideas, diverse art forms, artists, and audiences can intersect one another. For more information please visit www.theintersection.org

March 2 - May 19, 2007

Present Tense

From March 2 - May 19, 2007, the Chinese Culture Center, in partnership with Kearny Street Workshop, presents Present Tense, a new visual exhibition showcasing the talents of young, emerging Chinese American artists. Featuring work by Susanna Kwan, Lauren M. Wong, Niana Liu, Max Chen, Amy Ho, Lucy Kalyani Lin, Marcus Lo, Sylvia La, Erin Ng, Jocelyn Shu, Sharon E.O. Hing, Stephanie Lie, and Amy Lam, this group exhibition offers a vibrant, lush, and expansive view into the intriguing work of new voices from the San Francisco Bay Area.

From Amy Lam’s Anita Mui Yim-Fong-inspired video altar installation, Madonna of Asia, to the grafitti-influenced Bay Area visual serenades of Marcus Lo, to Lauren M. Wong’s ink-and-colored-paper commentary on The Matriarch, to Sylvia La ’s quietly powerful paintings on the Asian American experience, to the uncomfortably intimate sound installation of Lucy Kalyani Lin, this show promises to intrigue and challenge its viewers, presenting a diverse portrait of young Chinese America.

Exhibition runs 3/2 – 5/19; gallery hours are Tues – Saturday, 10am – 4pm

Location: Chinese Culture Center gallery, 750 Kearny Street, 3rd floor of Hilton San Francisco Financial District Hotel, San Francisco.

Cost: free

Info: CCC: 415.986.1822 or info@c-c-c-.org; KSW: 415.503.0520 or info@kearnystreet.org

About the artists

Max Chen was born and raised in the Bay Area. Needing a change of weather, he went to college in upstate New York and came back with a degree in mechanical engineering. Since then it has been a mix of industrial/product design and metalworking. The only constant is comics and bicycles.

Sharon Elaine Ong Hing is a fifth generation Chinese American who was born and grew up in San Francisco, California. After graduating from University High School in 2001, she attended UCLA where she earned three degrees (Fine Arts B.A., International Development Studies B.A., and History B.A). In 2006, Ms. Hing moved to Hong Kong to study Cantonese at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. While in Hong Kong she also worked at the legal aid organization, Helpers for Domestic Helpers, volunteered at the Asian Human Rights Commission, and taught English at Po Leung Kuk Orphanage. She currently works at Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy as a Membership and Program Assistant and volunteers at several Bay Area community organizations as an art teacher and set designer.

Amy Ho works mainly in the mediums of video and performance.  She is particularly interested in using art to investigate individual experience and relations between action, space and time.  Amy Ho graduated with a Practice of Art degree at the University of California Berkeley.

Susanna Kwan uses ink, water, and words to tell stories. Her work stems from observations of the tension and grace that can be found in any relationship. She is a native of San Francisco.

Sylvia La explores human stories through the visual narrative tools of  figure, gesture, and cultural and personal symbols. She is a mixed  media artist and works with oils, watercolor, ink, papers, resistance,  accidents, and other material the world offers. Sylvia was  born into a Chinese family in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam during a time of tumultuous political upheaval and change. She fled Vietnam with her  parents before she was two. She remembers meeting America at the age of  six. She recalls a whirlwind of impressions in those few months  --  the millions of lights in New York City, arcades in blonde,  dusty Kansas, long distances by car across unfamiliar terrain, and the  watery San Francisco bay area, where she has been living since.

A native of Dublin, CA, Amy Lam is a graphic designer currently employed in Berkeley. Amy can be found lurking in the background of Kearny Street Workshop and Locus events posing as an artist/writer type. Visit her online at www.mobilerepublic.net.

Stephanie Lie was born in San Diego, California in 1977 and now lives in San Francisco.  She received two Bachelors degrees in Art and Computer Science at UC Berkeley.  Lie worked with sculptor Jane Rosen as a studio assistant for five years, where she assisted in the fabrication of works at the Pilchuck School of Glass in Seattle and at Public Glass in San Francisco.  Lie was an artist in residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, where she worked with installation artist Judy Pfaff..  While working with Rosen, she was a teaching assistant of drawing classes at UC Berkeley.  She developed drawing workshops with Rosen based on these classes, which are now in their third year.  She is designing a book based on this teaching with Rosen and Pulitzer Prize winning author Richard Rhodes.  Lie has collaborated with performing artists as a musician and as a developer of multimedia tools for live performance.

After graduating from a Swiss Hotel School, Niana Liu started to teach herself painting and photography. Discovering the passion of her life, she devoted herself to art making ever since. Mixing her Eastern roots with Western influence, she often focuses on the interplay between cultures in her artwork. In July 2006, she was invited to demonstrate painting at the San Francisco Asian Art Musuem, in conjunction with their special exhibition: A Curious Affair. In her artworks, she demonstrated the tug of war between globalization and cultural identity. For more information, please visit www.nianaliu.com.

Lucy Kalyani Lin is a digital video installation artist currently living in Oakland, CA.   She graduated from UC Berkeley with a B.A. in Fine Arts in 2005.   As another transplant from southern California, she has no plans of returning. Lucy has recently become a vegetarian after watching a video clip on foie gras.

Born and raised in the bay area. Marcus Lo loves working in a variety of mediums including pencil & ink, watercolor, charcoal, paint, pastel, mosaic, collages, oils, acrylic, and many more. Some of his influences include comic books, graffiti, hip hop art, fine art, Chinese brush painting, and photography. He also volunteers teaching art weekly at Manzanita Elementary in Oakland for SPORTS 4 KIDS. You may be able to find him at Frank Ogawa Plaza or Jack London Square on certain weekends selling and doing art. If you need any custom artwork done, feel free to contact him. He also has a lot of prints of his past works for sale. For more information, please visit www.myspace.com/sosar1

Jocelyn Shu currently lives in the Bay Area from which she is a native of. She received a B.F.A. degree in Painting/Drawing in 2005 through a joint-degree program with the University of San Francisco and the California College of the Arts. She spent a year studying at Studio Art Centers International in Florence, Italy. Her work is highly influenced from her experiences living abroad and her travels have included extensive portions of Europe and Taiwan.

Lauren M. Wong works primarily in drawing and digital media. She received a bachelor’s degree in Studio Art, with a concentration in Digital Media, at Scripps College- a part of the Claremont Consortium of Colleges- in Claremont, California. In the past she has worked under the direction of artists Sol LeWitt, Seyed Alavi, and Rigo and her debut exhibition/installation was at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Garage. Post-college, she continues to seek new meaning in the process of art making through collaborative projects, including the co-creation a weekly web-comic involving ponies eating cakes, and actively showing her work in San Francisco and outside the Bay Area. To see more of her work visit: www.laurenmarikowong.com.

 

About the Chinese Culture Center

The mission of the Chinese Culture Center is to foster preserve promote and influence the understanding and appreciation of Chinese and Chinese American arts and culturein the United States. This exhibition gives Chinese American artists the opportunity to network with other artists and to gain confidence in promoting their work in public. For more information please visit http://www.c-c-c.org