AAAinA's Leadership Camp VII: a̷s̷i̷a̷ ̷u̷n̷a̷u̷t̷h̷o̷r̷i̷z̷e̷d̷

AAAinA is pleased to announce the open call of the 7th iteration of Leadership Camp. Initiated in 2016 by Christopher K. Ho, artist, teacher and Executive Director of Asia Art Archive in Hong Kong between 2021-2025, this long-standing program brings together arts practitioners at varying stages of their careers to discuss through an “Asian” lens a wide range of topics impacting art, art practice and the arts profession. This Camper-led program encourages discussion, debate, and knowledge sharing and begins with an overarching theme, an initial set of “framing questions,” and a reading list. Different for each Camp and proposed by the Camp leaders themselves, the program’s themes have included: “Envisioning Institutions,” “Engendering Leadership,” “Model Minorities and Model Majorities,” “Other Racisms,” “(Im)material Ruins,” and “Vaguely Asian.” Expanding on these themes, some initial questions have asked: Might once marginal spaces now constitute institutional instruments for change? How can Asian social structures….inform models of contemporary leadership, and how might artists, curators, gallerists, and scholars in Asia and elsewhere productively and selectively deploy these? With Asia constituting 60 percent of the world’s population….are there best practices for being a global model majority and a US minority alike? What if the “other” in “Other Racisms” is replaced with “our”?

Leadership Camp combines closed seminar-type discussions of selected texts with presentations by participants and guests which culminate in a final project or program. In 2025 participants collectively created a zine of their research, notes, and findings and presented them through a public program.

This year’s Leadership Camp’s theme, a̷s̷i̷a̷ ̷u̷n̷a̷u̷t̷h̷o̷r̷i̷z̷e̷d̷, has been proposed by Umber Majeed and Daniel Wu who will organize and moderate the sessions, with the support of AAAinA’s programming team. Exploring ideas of fraudulence, mimicry, and authenticity through the lens of Asian and Asian American identity, Majeed and Wu’s initial framing questions for the first session can be accessed HERE.

Leader’s Bios:

Umber Majeed is a multidisciplinary visual artist and media educator. Her writing, performance, and animation work engage with familial archives to explore Pakistani state, urban, and digital infrastructure through a feminist lens.

Majeed has shown in venues across Pakistan, North America, and Europe. Majeed’s solo exhibitions include; ‘In the Name of Hypersurface of the Present’, Rubber Factory, New York (2018) and ‘Trans-Pakistan Zindabad (Facts about the Earth)’, 1708 Gallery, Richmond, Virginia (2021), ‘Made in Trans-Pakistan’, Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, NY (2022), and ‘J😊YTECH’, Queens Museum, Queens, NY (2025-6).

She is a recipient of numerous fellowships including the HWP Fellowship, Ashkal Alwan, Beirut, Lebanon (2017), Refiguring Feminist Futures Web Residency, Akademie Schloss Solitude & ZKM, Germany (2018), the Digital Earth Fellowship, Hivos, the Netherlands (2018-19), Technology Residency, Pioneer Works, Brooklyn (2020), QM-Jerome Fellowship (2024), and ISCP Pollock Krasner Fellowship (2025). Majeed is currently a Y12 NEW INC member- Extended Realities Track.

Danielle Wu is a writer and curator based in New York. She is primarily interested in artists who engage in biting institutional critique: against regimes of truth, beauty, religious authority, and fantasy that occlude reality and dissent.

She is currently the Communications and Exhibitions Director at Asian American Arts Alliance (A4) and was previously a Digital Fellow at Democracy Now! Her reviews have been published in Art in America, Artforum, Frieze Magazine, The Offing, among other publications. Notable curatorial projects include Just Between Us: From the Archives of Arlan Huang with Howie Chen at Pearl River Mart, New York (2023); Water Works at International Studio & Curatorial Program, New York (2022); and Ghost in the Ghost with Anne Anlin Cheng at Tiger Strikes Asteroid, New York (2019).

She was part of Independent Curators International’s 2025 New York Curatorial Seminar and was a recipient of the Charlene Victor and Ella J. Weiss Cultural Entrepreneur Fund (2025), New York State Council on the Arts Grant (2022), Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Manhattan Arts Grant (2022), Critical Minded Grant from Allied Media Projects (2020), and Brooklyn Arts Council Grant (2019). Her work has been featured in The New York Times, ArtNews, Hyperallergic, South China Morning Post, WNYC, and other media outlets.

AAAinA’s general programming and operations are funded in part by the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the Vilcek Foundation, and other foundations and individuals.

Application Instructions

Applications for Leadership Camp: a̷s̷i̷a̷ ̷u̷n̷a̷u̷t̷h̷o̷r̷i̷z̷e̷d̷, are due on Tuesday, December 16, at 11:59 PM. Applications should be sent to ckim@aaa-a.org. Please send all the below elements in ONE PDF FILE:

• a CV
• a narrative bio (max. 200 words)
• a short statement detailing your interest in Leadership Camp and this year’s theme of a̷s̷i̷a̷ ̷u̷n̷a̷u̷t̷h̷o̷r̷i̷z̷e̷d̷. Please refer to the Framing Questions, linked above, for more context on this year’s theme. (max. 500 words)
• an artwork or writing sample (optional)

Prior to the first session on Saturday, February 21, 10:30am – 1pm at Asia Art Archive in America, 23 Cranberry Street, Brooklyn NY 11201, participants will receive by email PDFs of the readings we will use as points of departure.