Twin Windows: Papercuts by Beatriz Vasquez and Xiaoqing Shi 
May 10–June 7, 2025
Reception: Sunday, May 25, 2025, 12–3pm, free

Co-presented by the Asian Pacific Cultural Center | 2025 United States of America Festival 

“Twin Windows” brings together contemporary papercuts by an internationally exhibiting Mexican American artist from Indianapolis, with papercuts rich with traditional symbolism by an emerging Chinese American artist from Folsom. 

Beatriz Vasquez makes art inspired by papel picado, the Mexican craft of punched paper. Through her work, she aims to challenge stereotypes about marginalization, advance racial equity, and honor cultural knowledge, ancestry, and craftsmanship. Her work in “Twin Windows” depicts life on both sides of la frontera, including childhood visits to a grandmother’s house, cultural emblems, and cacti-filled landscapes.

Xiaoqing Shi is a practitioner of Chinese paper cutting, also known as jianzhi. As a child, she learned to cut paper from her grandmother. Later, she advanced her craft during the pandemic by studying with a master. Using only scissors and a single sheet of paper, Shi’s papercuts use flora and fauna to symbolize cultural beliefs, such as the cyclical nature of life. In “Twin Windows,” Shi exhibits a multitude of butterflies, an illustrated alphabet, and a new triptych about the immigrant experience.

The exhibition opens with papercuts by Vasquez and Shi which demystify their processes, reflecting the generous spirit of educators (both are teaching artists) while encouraging deeper appreciation of these manual papercraft forms. 

“Twin Windows” is curated by Christine Wong Yap in conjunction with “Bay Windows / Ventanas en saliente / 窗花,” her new trilingual, cross-cultural project re-engaging 16 working-class, immigrant, Chinese and Latinx womxn. To complement “Twin Windows,” Kearny Street Workshop’s project space will be activated with a display about “Bay Windows.”

Made possible with support from Creative Capital, the National Endowment for the Arts, Zellerbach Family Foundation, and the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center, which is supported by the Fleishhacker Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the San Francisco Arts Commission, Grants for the Arts, and the Zellerbach Family Foundation.

Participating Artists

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