APAture 2022 Recap
Striving for Community in Autonomy
photos by Claire Burke and Anth Bongco
At the end of May, a group of emerging Asian Pacific American artists and arts organizers came together over Zoom to work together to build a festival. After last year’s successful return of APAture, the group, largely made up of volunteers and artists inspired by last year’s festival, wanted to continue to create a space that could hold and nurture emerging Asian Pacific American artists.
In line with Kearny Street Workshop’s 50th Anniversary and one of Kearny Street Workshop’s organizing principles, the festival theme chosen was “Autonomy”. As we continue to face the challenges of an ongoing pandemic and the cruel realities of socioeconomic disparity, how do our communities find autonomy in our art, in our practices, in our lived experiences? How do we ensure our autonomy in spaces that continue to limit, disrupt, and minimize our existence? How can we imagine a more autonomous world that not only tolerates, but accepts our lives and art as important and significant? These were the questions our 41 artists explored in their work.
Read the full article by Yoshi Kato here
APAture 2022: Autonomy ran from October 8th to 30th, 2022 and had both in-person and live streamed events. This year’s festival kicked off with a Visual Arts showcase and Opening Reception titled RISE at Arc Gallery and Studios, featuring work from the APAture 2022 Visual Arts Featured Artist Heesoo Kwon and many other talented visual artists. Our Music, Performing Arts, and Comics, Zines, and Illustrations showcase, THRIVE, included Rocky G, the APAture 2022 Music Featured Artist, and so many other wonderful performers and amazing artists who ran artist alley booths at Kapwa Gardens. By hosting three showcases together in the same space, the event threw back to the origins of APAture when events were held in the span of 24 hours and artists of different mediums and disciplines mingled freely sharing space and forming connections that blossomed into friendships and collaborations and continues to enrich our arts community. Pallavi Somusetty, a Telugu American documentary filmmaker and visual storyteller and the APAture 2022 Featured Film Artist, headlined the film showcase, GROUNDING, with her two films Escaping Agra and Coach Emily which brought to light the stories of Naveen, who was held in India due to their gender and sexual orientation, and Emily, an Oakland-based Black and queer rock climbing coach who battles against systemic racism in her professional and personal life.
VOICE, this year’s Literary Arts showcase took place at Arc Studios and Gallery in front of a packed live audience and was also streamed online. The showcase featured incredible readings from so many wonderful writers and performers, including Christine No, the APAture 2022 Featured Literary Artist who read honest and tender poems about self discovery from her first poetry collection titled Whatever Love Means. The APAture 2022 Closing Reception, GENEROSITY, took place at Arc Studios and Gallery; the event featured a spectacular performance by Sarah Matsui and featured each of the visual artists talking about their art pieces and the different places of inspiration that led and helped create the work as it is today. Each talk led artists to more conversations and new ideas; one of the heartwarming moments throughout each APAture festival is when artists, attendees, staff members, and volunteers get connected and become friends who work on art and projects together. One of the most important aspects of APAture is the community the festival builds and the friendships that form from the shared collective goal of creating a more autonomous Asian Pacific American Arts community.
APAture 2022: Autonomy was a continued celebration of Kearny Street Workshop’s 50th anniversary. All of the events were a huge success! Most of our events had over 100 in-person attendees and many more through our Zoom and Youtube live streams. Many of our events have been recorded and the recordings can be found on our Instagram and on our Youtube! APAture 2022 was also heavily covered throughout the media with articles in SF Chronicle Datebook and 48hills and 2 interviews for NBC Asian Pacific America featuring Pallavi Somusetty and Rocky G. Please feel free to check out the interviews and articles!
We would like to thank everyone involved with APAture, each committee member, each artist, each volunteer, and, of course, all the audience members. APAture is a festival committed to the community and without each person’s collective efforts the events would not have been the same. If you would like to get involved with Kearny Street Workshop or future APAture events, please sign up here.
As the year comes to a close, we kindly ask you to consider Kearny Street Workshop for your end of year giving.Thank you to everyone’s ongoing support of APAture and Kearny Street Workshop! We can’t wait to keep working and supporting emerging Asian Pacific American artists!
With gratitude and in community,
Wesley, APAture 2022 Coordinator
Participating Artists
Visual Arts
Heesoo Kwon*, Nibha Akireddy, Juke Jose, Midori, Jane Kang, Kim Requesto, Takahiro Okubo, Ximaps Dong, Marlene Yee, Wednesday de Guzman, Yoezung
Performing Arts
Alder Duan Hurley, Michael Nguyen, Sarah Matsui
Literary Arts
Christine No*, antmen pimentel mendoza, Diana Fu, Susan Calvillo, aaron fai, Jen Soong
Comics, Zines, & Illustrations
REALSOUL, Seewoo Lee, Lin Jiang, Althea J Solis, Zareen Choudhury, Ivan Zhao, Twice Cooked Zines
Music
Rocky G*, Erin Lee, Mr. Bub, annamacan, mayx
Film
Pallavi Somusetty*, AnQi Yu & Mel Guo, Michelle Cai, Katie Mansfield, Mirrored Fatality, Safa Doost
GENERAL PLANNING COMMITTEE
Wesley Wang (Festival Coordinator)
Angel Angeles
Connor Carroll
Connie Liu
Dawn Angelicca Barcelona
Del Holton
Edi Dai
Ivy Chen
Jackson Wright
Jasmine Liang
Jerry Dear
Jingyu Li
Lucie Pereira
Marisa Lin
Mark Flores
Paula Mirando
Sam Lee
EVENT VOLUNTEERS
Amber Lee
Andrew Rogge
Anna Gabriella Casalme
Daniel Dao
Jeffrey Xiong
Jennelyn Quinto
Kenneth Ruan
Kingsley Song
LeeAnn Perry
Maria Cunanan
Robert Fox
Sean Bautista
Shannon Hong
KSW STAFF
Jason Bayani, Co-Director
Mihee Kim, Co-Director
KSW Board
Paul Ocampo
Robynn Takayama
Cristiana Baik
Lawrence Liu
Jenny Ton
Amanda Chaudhary
Nina Asay
Irene Gutierrez
Joshua Wheeler
PHOTO & VIDEOGRAPHY
Jason Nou
Claire Burke
Anth Bongco
CO-PRESENTERS
Arc Gallery & Studios
Kultivate Labs
Kapwa Gardens
Roxie Theater
3rd i South Asian Independent Film
FUNDERS
San Francisco Arts Commission
Zellerbach Family Foundation
Grants for the Arts
SPECIAL THANKS
Vinay Patel
Vega Coffee
Koreana Plaza
Viridian
Truett Hurst Winery
Lagunitas
Somar Bar