JADE WAVE RISING: PORTRAITS OF POWER

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, March 20, 2023 - Asian American Women Artists Association (AAWAA) and the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center (APICC) present the multidisciplinary art exhibition Jade Wave Rising: Portraits of Power, as part of the 26th annual United States of Asian America Festival opening on April 27, 2023, taking place at SOMArts Cultural Center’s Main Gallery. The opening reception takes place Thursday, April 27 at 6pm, followed by a community art workshop and gallery walk-through led by curator Yeu Q Nguyen on Sunday, April 30, and a closing event on Sunday, May 21.

Inspired by the jade gemstone’s various metaphysical and cultural meanings in its association with power, jewelry and crowns, JWR celebrates the diversity of AAPI women’s artistic voices while paying homage to overlooked historical figures and community leaders. “The exhibition aims to bring visibility to the myriad of ways API woman artists have embodied, expressed, and practiced their own power through art-making and community work. In doing so, it also establishes new faces and legacies of leadership in not only the API artistic community, but also society at large,” says curator and lead artist Yeu Q Nguyen. 

Beyond unveiling a new large-scale interactive installation created by Nguyen, Jade Wave Rising also features an altar by Twin Walls Mural Company that highlights significant community leaders: Grace Lee Boggs, Violeta Marasigan and Yuri Kochiyama, along with images of youth activists and six lanterns representing the victims of the 2021 Atlanta shooting. 

“This show emerges at a critical point in AAPI history when people in our communities are victimized as a result of unjust violence,” says AAWAA Director, Diana Li. “As AAPI women artists, we’re here to transform the narrative and stake a claim to the collective power and resilience behind our voices - voices that have existed in the legacy of our ancestors, families and communities for generations.

Jade Wave Rising  follows a series of Asian and Asian American identified women being honored in the arts and mainstream media. The late Bernice Bing, a trailblazing abstract painter and community organizer who also found a home in AAWAA’s sisterhood, made headlines in the arts last year with her work being exhibited at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. Performance artist, Kristina Wong, is also a recent recipient of the Doris Duke Artist Award with an unrestricted prize of $550,000. There’s also no question that Michelle Yeoh’s recent wins at the Golden Globes and the Oscars speak volumes for Asian and Asian American women everywhere - further empowering artists like those at AAWAA to dream big and rise up against stereotypes of Asian women at all ages.

Join the Asian American Women Artists Association at the opening reception, Thursday, April 27 at 6pm. Spend the following Sunday afternoon at two empowering art workshops and exhibit walk-throughs for the community led by curator Yeu Q Nguyen, April 30 at 1pm and 3pm. On Sunday, May 21 at 1pm, the exhibition also closes with literary readings and a screening of “Manilatown Manang”, a documentary about the life and times of Jeanette Gandiongo Lazam, an original Tenant Defender of the International Hotel during the 1970s and the last evicted tenant to step out of the hotel on August 4, 1977. 

The SOMArts gallery is open for visitors Thursday 3:00-7:30 PM, Friday 12:00-7:30 PM and Saturday/Sunday, 12:00-5:00 PM. A virtual 3D model of the exhibition will also be available online on the SOMArts website.

Full Press Kit

All Jade Wave Rising Artist Bios

“Manilatown Manang” Documentary Film Synopsis and Filmmaker Bios