Unsigned, Unsealed, Delivered (I'm Yours)
2023-05-10 12:00 - 2023-07-30 17:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 9th St. #290, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
Poinciana Hung-Haas is a Chinese-American arts activist who grew up in Oakland Chinatown. She uses arts as a medium to share stories of growing up in a town engulfed by a rich culture, one that is filled with a diversity of people, music, food, and street art. Her upcoming exhibition, Unsigned, Unsealed, Delivered (I’m Yours), featuring poetry from spoken word poet, Ellis Chhourn, shines light on Asian American youth and how their experiences influence what they portray through a variety of art forms. The exhibition title draws inspiration from Stevie Wonder’s song, “Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours)”, but here, “unsigned” represents those who are undocumented, “unsealed” represents open wounds and trauma, and “delivered” represents arriving in America. Finally, “I’m yours” represents belonging here and taking up space with pride.
Unsigned, Unsealed, Delivered (I’m Yours) can be viewed at OACC during OACC’s business hours (Wednesday – Saturday, 12 PM-5 PM) starting May 10th, 2023.

Featured Artists

Poinciana Hung-Haas
For the past seven years, Poinciana has developed her fine art and fashion design skills through her education at Oakland School for the Arts. Her work has been exhibited at the Exploratorium in San Francisco and throughout Downtown Oakland. Poinciana also created the Dragon Power design representing Oakland Chinatown, which is currently being sold by Oaklandish. Outside of school, Poinciana advocates for her community as an intern for AYPAL. She also works at the Lincoln Recreation Center, where she strives to introduce kids to her own passions. Poinciana plans to major in Urban Studies at UC Berkeley next Fall, where she can continue strengthening her voice and power.

Ellis Chhourn
Ellis Chhourn is a Cambodian and Lao-American spoken word poet from the Dubbs in East Oakland California. He is a Social Justice advocate and uses his writing to speak for himself and his community by expressing his struggles in a beautifully poetic way. He shares his stories not to seek pity but for the sole purpose of telling his story for others to hear and possibly relate to. He finds freedom in his writting being able to have no restrictions on what he has to say or how he says it.

7th Street’s Secret Sauce: Celebrating Everett and Jones Barbeque’s 50-Year Legacy
2023-09-16 08:00 - 2023-09-25 17:00 | Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 9th St. #290, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
Featured Artists & Curators

Kenneth McGhee
Kenneth McGhee is a Los Angeles County native, raised in the San Fernando Valley, California. His true passion for drawing began at 6 years of age, with his main inspirations being the illustrators of DC, Marvel comic books, and Mad Magazine. He began a formal art education at Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, California and later enlisted in the United States Navy. After serving overseas for four years, he became a design atelier Graphic Artist and freelance illustrator in Bonn, Germany. Since his repatriation to the United States in 1996, Kenneth continues working as a freelance Commercial Illustrator/ Graphic Artist, Art Tutor, and Fine Artist. You can view his multi-styled commercial illustration and graphic design work samples at: https://Kensfunkyart.com.

Shirley Everett-Dicko
Shirley Everett-Dicko is the fifth child of Dorothy Turner Everett, and a member of the legendary family of not eight, nine, or ten but eleven Black pitmasters from Oakland, CA, and nine of these pitmasters are dynamic Black women who have been cooking delicious smoked meat on brick pits for 50 years. She is the family’s historian, the social media director, and one of four surviving Everett siblings. Shirley was there on opening day in 1973 and has been the marketing director for Everett and Jones Barbeque since day one. Shirley has authored a new book titled Brick House. The new book is about barbeque from the perspective of a Black woman. Her late mother and five deceased siblings’ legacy will live on through these collections of short stories.

Elder Voices: Chinatown Legacy Businesses Exhibition
2023-10-11 13:00 - 2024-01-22 17:00 | Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 9th St. #290, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
“Elder Voices: Chinatown Legacy Businesses” features stories and portraits from six cultural keepers whose businesses have been and continue to be Chinatown pillars. Oral histories will feature stories about the legacy and contributions of Cam Ahn Restaurant, Green Fish Market, Draline Tong Herbs, Yuen Hop Market, Imperial Soup, and the Great China (1950s). Featuring photos by Chinatown Pretty photographer, Andria Lo.

This exhibition will be available to view during OACC’s business hours (Wednesday-Saturday, 12 PM -5 PM).

Meet the Exhibition Artists & Curator
Lead Artist

Andria Lo
Raised in Alaska and Texas, Andria Lo a freelance editorial and commercial photographer now based in San Francisco Bay Area. With a background in studio art with a degree from University of California Berkeley, her first photo book, Chinatown Pretty, was published in fall of 2020 by Chronicle Books. For more information, visit http://www.andrialo.com/about.
Contributing Artist

William Gee Wong
William Gee Wong is a print journalist, author, and amateur historian. A native of Oakland, California’s Chinatown, William was previously a journalist for The Wall Street Journal (1970-1979), The Oakland Tribune (1979-1996). He also wrote for The San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco News Call Bulletin, San Francisco Examiner, East West: the Chinese American Journal, and Asian Week. William is the author of Yellow Journalist: Dispatches from Asian America, Images of America: Oakland’s Chinatown, and co-author of Images of America: Angel Island, and his forthcoming book Sons of Chinatown, A Memoir Rooted in China and America to be released in Spring 2024. For more information, visit https://www.williamgeewong.com.

Flo Oy Wong
Flo Oy Wong, co-founder of the San Francisco-based Asian American Women Artists Association, is an artist, poet, and educator. She is a 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.
Nellie Wong

Nellie Wong has published four books: Dreams in Harrison Railroad Park, The Death of Long Steam Lady, Stolen Moments, and Breakfast Lunch Dinner. Her poems and essays appear in numerous journals and anthologies, including This Bridge Called My Back: Writings By Radical Women of Color, and excerpts from two poems have been permanently installed at public sites at the San Francisco Municipal Railway. A building at Oakland High School is named after her, she is co-featured in the documentary film, Mitsuye and Nellie Asian American Poets, and a poem of hers was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She traveled to China in the First American Women Writers Tour with Alice Walker, Tillie Olsen, and Paule Marshall, among others. She taught at Mills College and the University of Minnesota, and is the recipient of the 2022 PEN Oakland/Reginald Lockett Lifetime Achievement Award.
Curator
Roy Chan

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 at www.chinatownmemories.org
This exhibition is made possible by the support of the Senior Assistance Foundation Eastbay (SAFE).

Love and Protect Mural Series
2024-01-26 12:00 - 2024-03-02 17:00 | CA
“Love and Protect” is a condemnation of violence and a commitment to uplift, nourish, fortify and pay homage to our communities so that when we rise, we rise up together. On April 10th-11th, 2021, local Asian and Black Bay Area visual artists and community members came together to produce a series of mobile public art murals in Oakland Chinatown for communities impacted by Asian hate crimes.
Artists Cece Carpio of Trust Your Struggle Collective and Tommy Wong of Civic Design Studio and Good Good Eatz brought together local artists who are deeply rooted in the fight for racial and environment justice.
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS:
Emory Douglas, Tarika Lewis, Cece Carpio, Robert Liu-Trujillo, Elaine Chu, Priya Handa, Miguel “Bounce” Perez, Eric Norberg, Karen Seneferu, Malik Seneferu, Thitiwat Phromratanapongse, Cecilia Dong, Catherine McMahon, Ming Mur-Eay, Elokin Orton Cheung, Harrison Street Senior Art Collective, Deanna Brownfield, Malik Byers, Greer Nakagawa Lee, Maya Looney, Lauryn Marshall, & Asians 4 Black Lives.

"Longing for Attachment" Exhibition
2024-06-14 12:00 - 2024-07-27 17:00 | Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 9th St. #290, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
Longing for Attachment
Exhibition Dates: June 14 – July 27, 2024
ARTogether and Oakland Asian Cultural Center co-present “Longing for Attachment,” an exhibition curated by Bushra Gill featuring 30+ Bay Area 1st/2nd generation immigrant and refugee artists reflecting on the notion of attachments.
As immigrants, refugees, and their descendants, we make choices on what to hold onto and what to let go of when moving to another country or culture. Being too attached to a place or way of being can make it hard to form connections to anything new. But our connection to a place is also related to our quality of life and well-being– it links us to neighborhoods and communities where we have lived. Anyone who has migrated from another country or grown up in an immigrant family knows these attachments run deep and true, not needing to be present to have a prominent place in our hearts.
We invite you to join us in reflection of our relationships to attachment, and to celebrate these Bay Area refugee, immigrant, and children of immigrant artists.
Exhibition Dates: June 14 – July 27, 2024
Gallery Hours: Wednesdays through Saturdays, 12 PM – 5 PM
Location: Oakland Asian Cultural Center
388 9th St, Ste 290, Oakland, CA

Check out the accompanying audio tour for this exhibition, facilitated by the curator Bushra Gill:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FewN3Nu0o8o

Curator

Bushra Gill is interested in finding order within the chaos of everyday life through art. She was born in Karachi, Pakistan, and emigrated to Houston, Texas, with her family as a small child. Drawn to art from a young age, she graduated from Pratt Institute in 1994, with a BFA in sculpture. She spent many years of working as a museum educator at various galleries and museums including The Museum of Modern Art, The Drawing Center and The Rotunda Gallery, while also working as a studio assistant to various artists including Maya Lin, Ursula von Rydingsvard and Maria Elena Gonzalez, as well as a career as a clothing designer and boutique owner in New York. In 2009, she moved to northern California with her family and returned to making art. In recent years, Gill has participated in many exhibitions in galleries across the United States.
Exhibiting Artists
Amanda Messina Gerodias
Anita Sulimanovic
Bushra Gill
Christina Xu
Chupis
Dion
Eva Agus
Ezra Mara
Fernanda Martinez
Glish Group (Timofey Glinin & Anastasia Shubina)
Hargun Mahal Mann
Jaide Lin
Lark
León Hernandez
Leyla Jamil Rzayeva
Linah Sofi
Lorraine Lawson
Mariel Paat
Martin Rodriguez Serrano
Michelle Lin
Narges Valibeigi
Ngân Vũ
Nhien Le
Peter Gee
Renacimiento
Ria Sharma
Russel Arelis
Salma Arastu
Shooting Within
Tatiana Carvalho
Ujjayini Sikha
Vreni Michelini Castillo
YouBeen Kim
Yuting Wang
Performing at the Opening Reception

Nadhi Thekkek (@navadancesf) is a dancer, choreographer, and the Artistic Director of Nava Dance Theatre. Nadhi uses the south Indian dance form of bharatanatyam to navigate place, identity, and politics through the lens of her lived experience as a child of immigrants and an unapologetic South Asian, diasporic woman. She reimagines how bharatanatyam can serve marginalized narratives that need to occupy space in the US right now. Her latest work “Rogue Gestures/Foreign Bodies” sources community interviews, historical texts, and poetry to explore the intersections of labor, agency, and belonging in our South Asian ancestry. Through Nava Dance Theatre, Nadhi also produces and co-facilitates the Unrehearsed Artist Residency Program, where South Asian dancemakers create art that challenges the status quo. For more information on Nadhi, visit www.navadance.org.

Roopa Mahadevan (@roopama) is a leading second-generation Indian classical and crossover vocalist in the American diaspora known for her powerful, emotive voice and collaborative versatility. She leads Roopa in Flux, an ensemble featuring musicians in jazz, soul/R&B, and various global traditions, directs the innovative choir Navatman Music Collective, and sings for leading bharathanatyam/contemporary dancers. She is a soloist on Grammy Award-winning Calling All Dawns, and has been in residence at Banff Center for Arts and Creativity, Hedgebrook, MASS MOCA, and Ryder Farm. FOr more information visit, www.roopamahadevan.com.

Precious Beings Exhibition & Closing Reception
2024-08-01 12:00 - 2024-09-07 17:00 | Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 9th St. #290, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
PRECIOUS BEINGS
Finding the connections between endangered ecosystems and the violence inflicted upon Indigenous women.
Exhibition Dates:
Aug. 1, 2024 – Sept. 7, 2024

Closing Reception: Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024, 5 PM- 7 PM
(Link to Register Below)

Western scientific thought has long approached both nature and people of color as territories to be dominated, inspected, and mined for information and resources. Ecofeminism has made persuasive arguments connecting women and nature.
Kim Shuck’s (Cherokee) beadwork seeks to encourage more awareness of the biome around us and our place in that biome. Curious creatures of all kinds populate Kim’s beaded world. It is a world created bead by bead not to question or harvest but to recognize and acknowledge relationships and community. These precious beings are not fragile, though they have been subjected to violent environmental change. We are all subject to these changes.
Barbara Mumby’s (Patawomeck, Pamunkey, and Mattaponi) portraits of women seek to shift regressive narratives about how beauty is defined, particularly for Indigenous women and women of color. The artist creates work, not to cater to the male gaze, but to shift power into the hands of the sitter. Intimate stories of family, love, trials, and victories are subversively woven into each brush stroke, resulting in large-scale, vibrant works that force viewers to acknowledge their presence and force. These women refuse to be ignored, sexualized, erased, or defined by others.
Together, Shuck’s and Mumby’s work sit in dialogue with one another. Interwoven threads reach between and connect our endangered animals and plants to the silencing of and violence inflicted upon Indigenous women.
This exhibition’s closing reception will take place on Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024, 5 PM – 7 PM.

Gallery Hours: Wednesdays through Saturdays, 12 PM – 5 PM
Location: Oakland Asian Cultural Center
388 9th St, Ste 290, Oakland, CA

Register

Featured Artists

Barbara Mumby (Patawomeck, Pamunkey, and Mattaponi) descends from the Powhatan Confederacy, specifically the Patawomeck, Pamunkey, and Mattaponi Peoples. She was born and raised in California’s rural Central Valley, where her family’s Native American heritage and work as migrant farmers greatly influenced her passion for social justice. The arts became an integral part of her life and worked as a coping mechanism for the poverty and instability surrounding her.
Barbara is an artist, activist, curator, consultant, and Indigenous Narrative Shifter; she uses the arts to challenge inaccurate and outdated perceptions of Indigenous Peoples and other marginalized communities. She views the arts as a powerful and effective tool for survival and an instrument to unite communities and move public policy.

Kim Shuck (Cherokee) is the 7TH Poet Laureate of San Francisco Emerita and a silly protein. She has been making textiles well before she was in school, and thinks of the textile process as a first language. Kim has an MFA in textiles from San Francisco State University, and in Indigenous circles, her beadwork is celebrated across the country. Many of the pieces shown here represent endangered and extinct biota from places that are important to her.
Creative Work Fund has supported many of Kim’s pieces in this exhibition.

From Chinatown to West Oakland: Community Portraits of Healing
2025-01-30 12:00 - 2025-05-01 17:00 | Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 9th St. #290, Oakland, CA, 94607, United States
From Chinatown to West Oakland: Community Portraits of Healing

Exhibition Dates:
Jan. 30, 2025 – May 1, 2025
“There is actually a collective historical trauma that we hold, and we carry… and that we are also trying to recognize and heal for our future generations…”

In this new photo exhibition titled From Chinatown to West Oakland: Community Portraits of Healing, Oakland community members share their experiences of pain and trauma, as well as their expressions of hope and humanity.

Join Asian Health Services and Baywell Health on Friday, February 21, 2025, for the opening reception of their new photo exhibition based on the Asian-Black Racial Healing Project. The two community health centers launched this project in 2021 in response to the heightened violence experienced by both communities. Over 1,000 Asian and Black Oakland community members engaged in interviews and delved into conversations on race, violence, and healing. This exhibition and event celebrates our communities and our collective desire for connection, safety, and healing across cultures.

Register for the opening reception

About Asian Health Services
Asian Health Services, founded in 1974, provides health, social, and advocacy services for all, regardless of income, insurance status, immigration status, language, or culture. Their approach to well-being focuses on “whole patient health,” which is why they provide not just primary care services but include mental health, case management, nutrition, and dental care to more than 50,000 patients in English and 15 languages.

Website: https://asianhealthservices.org/our-mission/
About Baywell Health
Founded by four African-American mothers fifty years ago amid the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, Baywell Health’s mission is to improve the health and well-being of its communities by providing the highest quality of health care and treatment for its diverse patient population throughout Alameda County. Each clinic’s health center strives to be a hub for health, compassion, engagement, and inspiration.

Website: https://westoaklandhealth.org/
