“To Imagine is to Exist:” Kearny Street Workshop Celebrates 50 Years as a Vital Arts Organization in California for Asian Americans
KSW celebrates their 50th anniversary (KSW50) with a gala on June 11th, 2022 and three special events slated into spring 2023
Artist Anh Bui (Photo by Michael Nicer)
Kearny Street Workshop is celebrating their 50th anniversary with a gala on June 11th at the San Francisco Mint (88 5th St, San Francisco, CA 94103).
San Francisco, CA – April 19, 2022 – Kearny Street Workshop (KSW), founded in 1972, is celebrating their 50th anniversary with a gala on June 11th at the San Francisco Mint (88 5th St, San Francisco, CA 94103), along with three other special events moving into 2023. The gala’s theme of “renewal” promotes generational healing and rejuvenation and how KSW’s historical roots of activism and cries for self determination continue to inspire the collective imagination for an abundant future — a vision made even stronger in the face of ongoing anti-Asian hate.
“Kearny Street Workshop is an absolutely vital arts organization and community space,” shares Chen Chen, a poet and the author of “When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities” (BOA Editions, 2017), winner of the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize and previous KSW Presents feature in 2017. “The KSW reading event I got to contribute to remains one of my all time favorites. What a cherished memory. Reading with fellow queer Asian American writers for an event organized and hosted by queer Asian Americans in front of an audience comprised mostly of Asian Americans, many of them also queer. For so long, I was told by cishet white mentors and peers that if I wrote too narrowly about my own experiences I would have no audience. KSW reminds me in such a powerful way that my voice does matter.”
Art by Erin Alejo (Photo by Claire Burke)
Community Opportunities for Celebration, Creativity, and Joy
The gala will feature a plethora of fun and informative activities ranging from small plates by renowned APA chefs in the Bay Area curated by Project by Project, to a one-night only intergenerational performance, DJ, live jazz music, and more. The show will feature community-based artists and performances from the KSW’s past and present. Attendees can also enjoy live painting, a silent art auction with live component culminating at the gala, and the “Living Archive” room shaped by KSW’s “We Won’t Move” Podcast - with hosts Michelle Lin, Kazumi Chin, and Dara Del Rosario. Attendees are invited to share their personal stories about KSW and APIA arts community.
“‘We Won’t Move’ is a demand for these truths to be taken seriously. It is a demand that we challenge the very notion that confines of history remain relegated to the past. It is a demand that we be allowed, at once, to remember, and to dream,” says Kazumi Chin, host of the We Won’t Move Podcast.
Each KSW50 festivity and program is themed after one of their organizing principles:
RENEWAL: The 50th Anniversary Gala is scheduled for June 11th, 2022 at The San Francisco Mint and will be a celebration focused on rejuvenation and healing, while harkening back to KSW’s rich history through intergenerational arts and entertainment from renowned APA artists.
AUTONOMY: APAture — KSW’s dynamic, annual multidisciplinary arts festival scheduled for October 2022 — will be organized by and for emerging APA artists in the Bay Area who curate and build the creative spaces our communities need and deserve.
FUTURITY: An anthology of influential APA writers, poets, and visionaries reflecting on the power of art to create change — and a nod to KSW’s historic press.
SOLIDARITY: In Spring 2023, “Celebrate Your Body” returns, our empowering, gender inclusive, and body positive fashion runway centering POC and marginalized groups, and featuring local fashion designers.
After more than a year of a global pandemic, along with the recent surge of anti-Asian hate that has stoked fear and anger across the U.S., Asian Pacific American communities are looking for ways to celebrate not only their resilience, but their right to exist joyfully and creatively. Rising awareness of anti-Asian hate during this pandemic is not enough to sustain Asian Pacific American community wellbeing and capacity to imagine, dream, and grow. It is through cultural collaboration across sectors, and human-centered storytelling that we can begin to catalyze change.
50 Years of Championing APA Activism, Art, and Culture
Work by Sun Park and Erin Alejo (Photo by Claire Burke_Kearny Street Workshop
Founded in 1972, during the height of the Asian American cultural movement, Kearny Street Workshop is the oldest Asian Pacific American multidisciplinary arts organization in the country. For half a century, KSW has been a stalwart hub, launching pad, and anchor in the Asian Pacific American (APA) arts, culture, and activist community.
The organization has always existed to support APA artists from every discipline since inception — from its origins in fighting against displacement and evictions alongside the tenants of the International Hotel (KSW’s first home) to providing a safe space for Chinatown and Manilatown youth to creatively express themselves. KSW also launched the country’s only annual multidisciplinary arts festival focused on emerging APA artists that served as the first platforms for Asian American stars like Ali Wong (Always Be My Maybe and Baby Cobra), Hasan Minahj (The Daily Show and the Patriot Act), and Hellen Jo (writer, Cartoon Network’s Steven Universe). KSW envisions a more just society that fully incorporates APA voices informed by cultural values, historical roots, and contemporary issues.
“[Kearny Street Workshop] continues to nurture, inspire, heal and empower me as a Queer Pilipinx artist, and through all of the various KSW roles I’ve been in—as a volunteer, performer, and audience member—I realized how special and sacred these spaces are and that it is up to us to continue to create those spaces for our APA community to thrive,” says Gem Datuin, APAture 2018 showcase music artist.
Through collaborations with other arts organizations and cultural communities, both locally and nationally, KSW provides a forum for Asian American artists of different media to reach a wide, diverse audience. KSW offers classes and workshops, salons, and student presentations, as well as professionally curated and produced exhibitions, performances, readings, and screenings. The struggles of the neighborhood historically defined the art produced by KSW members: low-income housing, strikes by garment and electrical union workers, and eviction of the elderly tenants of the International Hotel. KSW makes artists out of community members and community members out of artists.
Celebrating the Bay Area APIA Community
KSW’s legacy is also woven into a larger fabric and movement of Asian and Asian American arts, culture and activism. Several other APIA organizations and groups are also celebrating anniversary milestones:
Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center’s (APICC) celebrates their 25th annual United States of Asian America Festival (USAAF) with 20+ programs taking place throughout San Francisco from April 29 to June 30. This year’s festival calendar can be found at www.apiculturalcenter.org/usaaf2022
Asian Improv aRts celebrates their 35th anniversary on June 30 with “Expansions // Horizons” [need more info]
In recognition of Kearny Street Workshop’s 50th anniversary and achievements, the organization will be honored at this year’s APA Heritage Awards at a public reception on May 4th, for having achieved significant milestones along with APICC this year.
KSW is made by community, for community, and mostly funded by the community. They are always looking for new partners, funders, and donors so that they can continue supporting the Bay Area’s most talented artists and passionate changemakers.
Limited early bird tickets for the KSW50 gala start at $50, regular priced tickets are $75, more information about all the programs can be found at kearnystreet.org/ksw50.
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About Kearny Street Workshop:
Established in 1972, Kearny Street Workshop (KSW) is the longest running Asian Pacific American multidisciplinary arts organization in the United States. Their mission is to present, produce, and promote art that empowers Asian Pacific American artists and communities. KSW envisions a more just society that fully incorporates Asian Pacific American voices informed by their cultural values, historical roots, and contemporary issues.