March Town Hall: Body Art

For our spring Town Hall, we are focused on how AAPI artists are using the body as a canvas and instrument in their practices. Lasting legacies of racism have caused matters of flesh, personal beauty, and inhabiting the body to be central subjects of investigation for our community. As AAPI tattoo and body artists have particularly blossomed in recent years, we’re pleased to invite featured presenters in these fields to speak about their work.

We will be hearing from Dayi Novas of OUCH! Studios to discuss her work as a tattoo artist, and lens-based artist Yi Hsuan Lai to share about her practice using handmade sculptures, found materials, and her body to make assemblages for still-lifes and self portraits. The evening will also feature a line-up of two-minute pitches from the community.

After the presentations, we’ll host a potluck meal, so please bring something to share; homemade or store bought items are welcome. A4 will provide drinks.

Thank you to our hosts, Worthless Studios, an artist community space in Brooklyn, NY that provides studio space, materials, technical assistance, tools and financial resources to artists of all backgrounds to realize their creative visions.

This event is FREE and open to the public. RSVP is required to pitch and/or attend, but please note you do not have to pitch to attend.

Interested in pitching? Please carefully read about the pitch process below.

Accessibility: The primary entrance to Worthless Studio is ADA accessible when a temporary ramp is placed. Alternatively, there is wheelchair access through the side entrance. The space has two gender neutral restrooms; one of which is ADA accessible. Please find A4’s Accessibility Notes on our website here.

If you need CART Transcription, ASL interpretation, large print, or any other accommodations for this event, please email jlee@aaartsalliance.org at least one week before this event.

To keep everyone safe and healthy, if you are not feeling well or have been exposed to COVID-19, please stay home. We will provide masks.

About the Pitch Process
A4 Town Halls are a forum to share an upcoming project or exhibition, promote an event or opportunity, find collaborators and venues, or simply introduce yourself to the community. There are two ways to pitch at an A4 Town Hall: a two-minute pitch which requires pre-registering, and a thirty-second pitch which you can sign up for at the event.

Two-minute pitches
You must complete the below steps in order to reserve your two-minute pitch slot.

1. Register for a “Pitch” ticket (either with or without a donation), and
2. Complete this pitch form with details about your pitch at least three days before the event

If you do not complete the form by the deadline, you risk not being included in the line-up.
In your pitch form, please include any images, video, or slides you would like presented during your pitch. We encourage you to share your website and social handles so that we can promote on the event page and in the slides – which we share with all attendees after the event.

Slides will be presented in the order in which they are uploaded. If you would like to ensure your slides appear in the correct order, please number them. We recommend no more than 20 slides. A4 Staff will be compiling and driving the master slideshow. Presenters will not be able to use their devices to present.

This time we are capping the two-minute pitches to 14 total presenters on a first come, first served basis. If we reach capacity, and you would like to be put on the waitlist, please email jlee@aaartsalliance.org.

We will send the pitch order to all presenters by the morning of the event.

Thirty-second pitches
After the two-minute pitches, we invite anyone from the audience to provide a thirty-second pitch. This requires signing up at the event via an online form we provide.

About Dayi Novas
Dayi (dah-YEE, she/her) grew up in the American South. She graduated in 2020 from Cooper Union with a degree in Design & Painting; and from Douglas Anderson School of the Arts in 2015 as valedictorian. She has designed typefaces, made little animations, worked on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign. She draws, paints, and created Studio OUCH! LLC in 2021. OUCH! Tattoos operates out of her private studio in Queens, NY. Her first handpoke was done in April 2021, and since then she’s converted to only using a machine for her work. She is licensed and welcomes anyone 18 years or older to come and get inked!

Learn more at ouch.studio

About Yi Hsuan Lai
Yi Hsuan is a Taiwanese lens-based artist currently based in New York. In her experience as an immigrant and “othered,” she uses handmade sculptures, collecting discarded and found materials and her body to make assemblages for staged photographs in still-lifes and self-portraits. Yi Hsuan received an MFA photography from School of Visual Arts (2020), and she was a participant in the NYFA immigrant artist program (2023). Her work was awarded LensCulture critic’s top 10 choice (2022) and has been exhibited solo in Anonymous Town in SPRING/BREAK Art show (2020, NY), and in group shows Today is Yesterday’s Tomorrow in PhMuseum Photo Festival (2022, Bologna, Italy), Smart Objects, Flattened Images in Well Well Project (2022, Portland, OR), A Body: Figure and Flesh at Floor Gallery (2022, Seoul, South Korea), If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home By Now at Wassaic Project (2021, Wassaic, NY), un/mute at Austrian Cultural Forum (2021, New York, NY), The Thing in Itself at NARS Foundation (2020, NY), Seasonal Repression at Field Projects (2020, New York, NY), and In Visible Space at HEREart (2020, New York, NY).

Learn more at flaneurshan.com

About A4’s Town Hall
Town Hall is A4’s bi-monthly community gathering event that features presentations, pitches, and power networking! We welcome artists of all disciplines, as well as arts organizations, to pitch upcoming projects, find collaborators, or discover new opportunities in a lively space.