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photo credit: Julie Juju Lee
PRESENCE:
10 WORKSHOPS,
2 EXHIBITIONS,
1 POETRY READING,
1 PICNIC,
1 FESTIVAL
June – Sept, 2024
organized by Bobbie Fan, Sara Tang, & Elina Zhang
about our programming
๐ท๐น๐ฌ๐บ๐ฌ๐ต๐ช๐ฌ 2024
S๐ฐ๐ญ๐ช๐ฅ๐ข๐ณ๐ช๐ต๐บ ๐ช๐ด ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ฌ๐ช๐ฏ๐ฅ ๐ฐ๐ง ๐ฑ๐ณ๐ฆ๐ด๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ค๐ฆ
๐ต๐ฉ๐ข๐ต ๐ค๐ฐ๐ด๐ต๐ด ๐บ๐ฐ๐ถ ๐ด๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ต๐ฉ๐ช๐ฏ๐จ.ย ย ย
– ๐๐ฐ๐ญ๐ฆ ๐๐ณ๐ต๐ฉ๐ถ๐ณ ๐๐ช๐ญ๐ฆ๐บ
Entering into the year of the Wood Dragon, we took seriously the need for grief and rest in the face of loss and tumultuous change. We have been dreaming on all the possibilities for building sustainability for future directions and to thrive in our bodies, to foster kinship, to bring awareness and celebrate our communities. These layers of inward and outward relationships further collective human liberation.
๐ท๐น๐ฌ๐บ๐ฌ๐ต๐ช๐ฌ offers up something material and weighty, something risky and transformative, with the desire to well up into deep ecosystems of action, care, and liberation.
We dream of creating alternate power outside of Western institutions fueling genocide in Palestine, Congo, Sudan, and more. We note what is revealed as arts institutions fall into this system of wrongs, and know that imagining a free Palestine forces us to imagine a free world; to seek to create that in the spirit of abolitionism, small little experiments, circles.
about our programming
๐ท๐น๐ฌ๐บ๐ฌ๐ต๐ช๐ฌ 2024
As AANHPI (Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander) Heritage Month is over and we are now in Pride Month, we celebrate our community and we also want to name the real limitations of ย representation and visibility. ย Are we going to seek the vertical protection of institutions, states, companies, or are we building horizontal solidarity, something new?
Weโve been seeping into these horizontal spaces with you, in third spaces, in reading rooms, in dreammaking, in so much more. May we find each other again and again in grief and in solidarity.
We are grateful to all our partners: Opportunity Fund, Rangoli Pittsburgh, Source Pittsburgh, Bunker Projects, Assemble Pittsburgh, Karavansarai, Brew House Arts, and Organization of Chinese Americans – PGH
presence 2024
Programming Schedule
01. June 01, 2024
Third Space Picnic
in collaboration with Rangoli Pittsburgh
This year we’re celebrating the sixth LGBTQ+ AAPI Day of Visibility and kicking off pride month by creating a third space where we can eat, laugh, breathe, and live. we invite you to bring a dish, snacks, or drinks to share, and we promise you’ll make friends.
02. june 15, 2024 & July 14, 2024
Dreams From the Orchid Den
workshop for only AAPI members with artist Sara Tang and professor, anthropologist, abolitionist, acupuncturist Tyler Phan, PhD as we excavate, write, and share our personal and familial mythologies & storiesย
03. july 7 – aug 4, 2024
Read-Shifiting Web w/ Bunker Projects
What happens when we rethink the book as a standard literary vehicle? When we rethink with the book toward other modes of reading and relation? Curated by Jenna Peng & Elina Zhang ๐น๐ฌ๐จ๐ซ-๐บ๐ฏ๐ฐ๐ญ๐ป๐ฐ๐ต๐ฎ ๐พ๐ฌ๐ฉ is a communal reading room and literary art exhibition, featuring books borrowed from the personal libraries of local Asian/American artists and organizers.ย
04. july 20, 2024
How to Hold a Book w/ Anisha Baid
This 30 min group meditation will reflect on reading as a bodily experience, moving oneโs attention from the physical reality of the book to an interior space where the book and the self collide.
Bunker Projects, 4-7PM
05. July 28, 2024
Living Scripts & Moving (Per)Formances w/ Ariel Xiu
This Embodied Research session invites those interested in exploring different notions of โreadingโ and โwritingโ through the body. Made up of unequal parts mining the Read-Shifting Web library, games, exercises, witnessing, improvising, & facilitated discussion, we will engage with the creative processes of making body/movement-based performance & its potential to highlight (pre) existing scripts encoded within & around us.ย
Bunker Projects, 7PM
07. august 4, 2024
Words Removed from Their Homes w/ Brent Nakamoto
In this text collage workshop Brent Nakamoto will teach you how to use your words. Using the books in the reading room as source material, we will be creating collages of found text & image.
08. aug 1 – 31, 2024
In The Ways We Tell
IN THE WAYS WE TELL is an art exhibition curated by Shimul Chowdhury and Sara Tang that presents a selection of diverse works from local AAPI artists telling stories of memory, of fantasy, of dreams, and of becoming.
Partnering w/ Assemble Pittsburgh
09. august 10, 2024
Poetic Justice w/ Karavansarai
Join us for a night of poetry and other art performances, centering Palestinian solidarity.ย @karavansarai_chaiย will be serving Palestinian sage tea!
The event is free, but weโll be selling the first edition of the zine Pittsburgh for Palestine, a collection of visual and written works by Pittsburgers reflecting on Palestinian liberation and liberation from imperialism.ย
All proceeds from the zine sales will be donated, split evenly between Palestine Legal and individual Go Fund Me pages for Gazans.
Brew House Arts, 5-7PM