Sunday, March 15
1:00-3:00 pm
FREE
Join us for two short documentaries celebrating the life and art of Flo Oy Wong—Tales of the Tofu Goddess: The Artful Life of Flo Oy Wong, and Drawn from Life: The Creative Legacy of Flo Oy Wong. The screenings will be followed by a Q&A with Flo Oy Wong, historian Roy Chan of the Oakland Chinatown Oral History Project, and film director Andi Wong. Post program, attendees are invited to a walking tour with Roy Chan to the 723 Legacy Mural, a large-scale mural by artist Desi Mundo located 7 minutes from the Oakland Asian Cultural Center. The mural incorporates drawings from Flo Oy Wong’s Oakland Chinatown series.
This event is co-presented by the CATS Contemporary Asian Theater Scene and the Oakland Chinatown Oral History Project. It is free to attend, but registration is requested at the link below.
PARTICIPANT BIOGRAPHIES
Flo Oy Wong, co-founder of the San Francisco-based Asian American Women Artists Association, is an artist, poet, and educator. She is the recipient of three National Endowment for the Arts awards, and has been a visiting artist at various colleges and universities. She has also been featured in articles in multiple publications. Growing up in Oakland Chinatown, she spoke her family’s ancestral dialect, Hoisan-wa. In 2018, Flo published her art and poetry book, Dreaming of Glistening Pomelos, inspired by her childhood. Contemporary Asian Theater Scene presented Wong with their 2022 Image Hero Award. You can find more of her work at flooywong.ddns.net
Roy Chan is an Oakland-based oral historian and urban planner committed to using the power of storytelling to build community and empower local residents to have a voice in the local decision-making process. Since 2007, he has been director of the Oakland Chinatown Oral History Project/AAPI Elder Voices Project and was previously Co-Executive Director at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center. Roy has previously practiced architecture and city planning in San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles, and is currently a program director at National CAPACD. Learn more about his oral history project at www.chinatownmemories.org
Andi Wong has a special interest in exploring the materials and languages of art. A fifth generation Chinese American, Andi researches and records history, helping to preserve the important contributions of artists. As project coordinator for ArtsEd4All, (Arts Education for Lifelong Learning), she enjoys playing with others, applying imagination and creativity, in service of community. Her creative partners include the Blue Mind Collective, Del Sol Quartet, First Voice—Brenda Wong Aoki and Mark Izu, Internet Archive, composer/musician Marcus Shelby and The Last Hoisan Poets—Genny Lim, Flo Oy Wong and Nellie Wong. Learn more about her work at artsed4all.org
