Pao Arts Center Announces Two New Exhibits for Spring Season
Boston, MA – Pao Arts Center is excited to open two new exhibits at the end of March in our gallery spaces. The two exhibits, Call and Response: Illustration in Uncertain Times and Workers Statues in Chinatown by Wen-ti Tsen, highlight the distinctive power of community-accessible art forms, such as public art and illustrations, to stimulate conversation around community advocacy and essential communication and expression during complex social moments.
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Left to right: Detail of Yuko Okabe, “An anxious note on social distancing”, 12 x 12; “The Chinatown Worker Statues”, Photo Courtesy of Wen-ti Tsen
Regarding the Call and Response: Illustration in Uncertain Times exhibit, Condon explains, “When developing this show, I was especially interested in illustration’s unique history as a medium used to communicate complex information through easily readable images and text - to reinforce certain messages and to protest them (during wartimes and crisis), to tell stories, etc. The different works for the show touch on this very wide spectrum of approaches and intentions. Some of the works are very practical – e.g., advocating for the use of masks. Some of the works address the personal experiences of artists navigating the pandemic, while others blatantly call out the intersecting social issues we continue to encounter. Lastly, some of the artwork center on community care and the need for more nurturing uplift for our AAPI and BIPOC communities more broadly.”
Wen-ti Tsen, whose work is featured in both exhibits adds, “Making this tribute to the Chinatown workers came out of being in Boston's Chinatown: of getting to know people, of getting close to them, of talking and listening, and of seeing the work in their families, and of learning what makes up people's lives. I'm very happy to be able to show the process of making the statues in a community gallery. This project ultimately belongs to the people of Chinatown” - Wen-ti Tsen
The opening reception for both exhibits will be held on Friday, March 31 from 6:00 – 8:00 pm at Pao Arts Center. Please see below for more details about each exhibit:
On View March 24 – June 30, 2023
Participating Artists: Deborah Johnson, payal kumar, Lillian Lee, Shaina Lu, Yuko Okabe, Sanika Phawde, Wen-ti Tsen
Curated by: Leslie Anne Condon
Over the centuries, artists have created images and illustrations in response to the world around them, to tell stories or to amplify messages of protest and solidarity, especially during times of widespread crisis and upheaval. This has been especially true for AAPI artists today, as our community continues to navigate multi-pandemics, including COVID-19 and its reverberations, and the rise of anti-Asian discrimination and violence. Like other illustrators over the year, local Boston AAPI artists have responded to these tragedies with images and words of resistance and of comfort. Call and Response: Illustration in Uncertain Times features illustrations and graphic designs by seven local AAPI artists who have used their craft to speak to this complicated moment. As with other kinds of labor, these artistic gestures offer critical support to the community by giving voice to different experiences and encouraging care. The exhibit will also feature a Zine library, curated by Pao Arts Center interns Rachel Liang, Christina Yang, and Steven Zhu around the same theme of illustrations as response.
On View March 24 – June 30, 2023
About the Artist: Wen-ti Tsen
For over thirty years, artist and activist Wen-ti Tsen has utilized his ideas and artistic practice to advocate for the local neighborhood and Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community. His latest project, Chinatown Worker Statues, pays tribute to the workers who have uplifted Boston Chinatown through their essential labor over the decades. The four sets of clay models Tsen has developed for the project represent four different workers from the Chinese immigrant community: the laundryman, the restaurant worker, the garment worker, and the grandmother tending a child. Each set of figures will serve as models in the creation of life-sized figures to be cast into bronze and permanently installed in prominent public spaces across Chinatown. These statues will offer a more complex and diverse reflection of our local histories and question who is celebrated through public art in our City. This multi-year project, Chinatown Worker Statues, was initially funded by the "Public Art for Spatial Justice" grant from New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA). The project has since been endorsed and fully funded as an artist-initiated project by the Boston City's Mayor's Office of Arts and Culture, with approval from the Boston Arts Commission. It will be realized in the coming months and then installed for the world to see.
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