Art Across Archives
Selected works from AAAC Archive and Permanent Collection
What does yesterday’s art have to say about our contemporary moment? In a ten-week, three part presentation, Art Across Archives explores this question by drawing on the work of Asian diaspora artists from the 1980s to the present. A slideshow put together by each month’s featured archive will be on view 24/7 from January 8th through the end of March in the window of 384 Broadway. During the community art space’s open hours, the slideshow can also be seen and heard on a second monitor indoors.
Part One of Art Across Archives is presented by the Asian America Arts Centre (AAAC), a non-profit community arts organization that was founded in 1974 in New York to address the distinctive concerns of Asian Americans in the United States. With roots in the Basement Workshop, the AAAC was originally established as the Asian American Dance Theatre and is one of the earliest Asian American community organizations in the country.
Since 1983, the AAAC has accumulated a research archive of over 1,600 entires touching on the history of Asian American art in the United States dating back to 1945. In 2009, the AAAC transformed a portion of this material into a professional archive for long-term preservation. The digital archive of nearly 200 artists can be viewed online at artasiamerica.org. AAAC’s permanent collection of artworks consists of over five hundred pieces of contemporary art and Asian folk art, and is currently seeking a new home.
Art Across Archives features material from three New York collections; Asian American Arts Centre (AAAC), the Asia Art Archive in America (AAAinA) in February, and the Asian/Pacific/American Collections at NYU (A/P/A Institute) in March. Think!Chinatown’s goal is to open these archives to fresh perspectives to catalyze new ideas in the community. The exhibit is also online, on artasiamerica.org.
About the Space
384 Broadway is a temporary art space presented by THINK!CHINATOWN and Chashama. With the mission to increase representation of Asian American artists and themes of concern to our community, this project seeks to test new ways galleries in Chinatown can better engage the neighborhood with cross-cultural and inter-generational practices. This project is not a commercial endeavor and is largely run on the energy of community volunteers.
THINK!CHINATOWN is a collective of neighbors and advocates working to keep Chinatown a vibrant place of inter-generational learning, cultural production & civic engagement. We are here to listen, to respond, and to build Chinatown’s capacities as a strong immigrant neighborhood of NYC. Our mission is to attract & connect resources for Chinatown organizations & businesses using the tools of design & community engagement. Join us in connecting past, present & future to ensure a resilient Chinatown
