Programs
The Asian American Arts Alliance offers programs that build community and provide resources through peer-learning, collaboration, and professional development, furthering the careers of Asian Americans in the arts and supporting a healthy arts ecosystem.
Our programs include networking events, talks, workshops, and fellowships that lower barriers for engagement, embed pathways of access for artists to connect with cultural gatekeepers, advance opportunities for artists and arts administrators of color, and provide tools to develop Asian American leaders in the community.
Our programs are developed in response to community input and directly address what Asian American artists say they need to help develop their craft, connect with other arts professionals and audiences/patrons/mentors, and achieve successful careers across their lifetimes.
Town Hall
ConversAAtions
Upcoming Event
Open Kimono: Pixy Liao, JiaJia Fei and Angela Wei
Professional Development
Upcoming Event
Futures Ever Arriving
Can Xue’s novel, Love in the New Millennium, paints a picture of a magical, hidden region in the heart of a, perhaps, fictional China where villagers shapeshift, impart the knowledge of life-giving medicine from the Earth, and protect each other to survive and to thrive. Driven by this cosmovision, Pearl River Mart + A4 present a group exhibition of emerging Asian American artists working in the United States who are examining our pasts and presents to dream up new futures in their work.
With the rise and increased focus on anti-Asian racism and violence across the country, conversations around safety and survival are key to ensuring that everyone in our communities can thrive. We are asking and forming thoughts around who we are, what does it mean to belong, and how do we all move onwards as a community while noting that we hold multiplicities.
Each artist’s work is playing a part in the rise of the new Asian America that we are forming during this critical time of uncertainty in our communities. When brought together, these artists’ works bring forth a small vision for the emergence that we can practice.
A4 Virtual Residency Gallery: Launch
Join A4’s Artists-in-Residence for the launch of an online gallery experience! After meeting from December 2020 - March 2021, this artist-led collaborative gallery was borne out of the intimate conversations that took place around their shared AAPI identity, racial reckoning and trauma, the processes of artmaking, the challenges of the pandemic, and peer critiques of their works-in-progress. in the four month of their A4 Virtual Residency which took place from December 2020 - March 2021.
These 23 artists, who represent a breadth of disciplines from theater, dance, craft, visual arts, film, to comedy and magic, will showcase works Unfinished for the public–works-in-progress, generative drafts, journaling, cross-disciplinary experiments, archival work, and more– representing the diversity of their divergent and messy experiences of the past four months as artists and human beings.
We invite you to the launch of their online gallery, to meet with the artists, ask questions, and view the art they chose to share with the public. Visitors will be provided with a schedule of breakout rooms and allowed to roam freely to explore the gallery and meet the artists.
The Van Lier Fellowship program aims to advance the careers and creative practice of Asian American artists living in New York City. This program supports early-career arts practitioners whose work shows outstanding promise in the fields of theater, music, and visual art to further develop their talent and to help establish them in the professional arts community.
With support from the Edward and Sally Van Lier Fund through the New York Community Trust, the fellowships provide a cash stipend, mentorship, and career development services. Created by the will of Sally Van Lier, the Trust carries out Edward and Sally Van Lier’s legacy of arts appreciation by supporting arts groups and training programs to provide education, training, or other support.
The Jadin Wong Fellowship recognizes an emerging Asian American dance artist whose work shows strong potential for greater achievement and who hopes to make a significant impact on the Asian American artistic community as a whole. The fellowship provides a cash stipend, mentorship, and career development opportunities.
This award is a tribute to the life and work of renowned Chinese American actress, dancer, and comedienne Jadin Wong (1913–2010), a pioneer and innovator of Asian American performing arts. The award is made possible by the Jadin Wong Educational Fund at the New York Community Trust, established to continue her dream of supporting aspiring artists, musicians, and and dancers of Asian descent.
Established in 2011, the Wai Look Award for Outstanding Service to the Arts is is given periodically to an Asian American who is making a significant contribution to the arts by demonstrating a commitment to outstanding service, advocacy, and/or leadership.
The award is a tribute to the life and work of Wai Look, who served on the Asian American Arts Alliance board of directors from 1999 until her death in December 2010. She spent most of her career in the arts, as an administrator and in artist services, and devoted herself to helping others. Ms. Look also strongly believed in the importance of volunteering, which was reflected in her personal, as well as professional life.