The AARC’s Community Art Exhibit Program displays artworks year round that celebrate the diverse and dynamic cultural heritage, history, identity and creativity of Asian American Pacific Islanders. Exhibits are displayed on a quarterly schedule.
Current/Upcoming Exhibits and Programs
Vessels – Handle With Care
The AARC presents Diane Chiyon Hong’s Vessels – Handle With Care. An exhibition consisting of drawings that examine East Asian cultural representation and iconography. By engaging with common tropes, she embarks on the process of reclaiming some part of the narrative and aims to open up space for dialogue and new perspectives. Playful juxtapositions of objects and figures create images that are at once endearing and unsettling. Utilizing humor as a subversive tool, Diane Chiyon Hong grapples with the complexity of Asian cultural identity by light-heartedly poking fun at the enterprise of stereotyping. Vessels – Handle With Care is on-view in the AARC's Foyer from February 26th, 2024 - July 5th, 2024.
In Her Glory
The AARC presents Julie Lee's In Her Glory. A collection of silk scarves containing memories of Lee's mother, specifically in her youth before she came to America. This portrait series depicts a woman's youthful beauty throughout time as she navigates throughout her life journey. The scarves contain and mimic patterns worn by the woman in the implanted photographs, melding together and forming visualizations of fleeting memories that have been frozen in time. Julie Lee's In Her Glory is on-view from February 26th, 2024 to July 5th, 2024 in the Zen Garden Hallway.
UPDATE: Julie Lee's Virtual Artist Talk has been rescheduled for June 2024. Stay tuned for more details.
AARC Senior + Staff ARTchiving
AARC Senior + Staff ARTchiving centers the stories and voices of seniors and staff members at the Asian American Resource Center (AARC) who make it an intergenerational space of belonging and healing. The project not only aims to showcase the personal and family histories of each of these community members but also their personhood. This exhibit was made possible and in conversation with the Asian American Community Archivist Program at the Austin History Center (AHC) and the Senior and Exhibits Programs at the AARC. This exhibit is on-view from April 8th-May 31st.
Permanent and Semi-Permanent Installations
- Lotus
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Lotus by Sunyong Chung and Philippe Klinefelter, 2013
granite, handmade ceramic tiles
Lotus is a large site specific sculpture created by Art in Public Places commissioned artists Sunyong Chung and Philippe Klinefelter for the Asian American Resource Center (AARC), and is located in the entrance plaza overlooking heritage live oaks.
Chung created an intricate and lively 12’ diameter mosaic of a lotus, made of hand-colored and hand-crafted dimensional tiles, which Klinefelter surrounded with seven 9’ tall hand-carved granite “petals” gracefully reaching toward the sky. Klinefelter also carved the lotus’s seed pod at the center of the mosaic from granite, which doubles as a gently flowing fountain. According to feng shui principles, the placement of the fountain near the AARC entrance creates positive chi, or energy, for the building. The lotus, native to Asia, was chosen as inspiration for the sculpture because of its symbolic attributes of harmony, purification and healing.
- Prayer Phone
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Prayer Phone | Semi-Permanent Art Installation
Prayer Phone, a handmade altar with a disconnected phone, is an invitation to the public to “call” their deceased loved ones while giving offerings and prayers. This project reflects a common custom of many Asian traditions: commemorating ancestors and venerating the spirit world.
Two essential elements compose this installation. The old fashioned phone is a symbolic artifact that represents humanity’s desire to connect and communicate with others. Its historic form evokes passage of time. By contrast, the spiritual act of lighting incense symbolizes the following: sacredness when the element of air is ignited, purification of the environment’s energy, and blessings in return for offerings. These two elements combine to help connect the earthly to the heavens.
This project is inspired by an episode of This American Life featuring stories about Telephone of the Wind in Otsuchi Town, a small seaside town in northeastern Japan. An iconic English telephone phone booth connected to nowhere was repurposed, and people began “calling” family members lost during the tsunami caused by the 2011 Great Japan Earthquake. Telephone of the Wind became a public space for people to grieve for their lost loved ones. In response, Prayer Phone shares in the deep tradition of respecting spirits and coexisting with entities beyond the physical realm, as well as providing a physical space and an outlet to feel connected with the departed.
Past Exhibits
- Past 2024 Exhibits
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Photo-Voice: Imagining an Age-Friendly Austin
- Past 2023 Exhibits
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Jae-Eun Suh's "Ensemble Archives"
Finding Creativity in Resistance: The Legacy of Silk Club
Perlas Ng Austin: A Celebration of the Central Texas Filipino Community Through the Arts
- Past 2021 - 2022 Exhibits
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ArtsResponders: Social Practice Responds to COVID-19 Featuring Lizzie Chen and Kengo
Tradition's Rebirth in Modern Austin
Creative Highlights Video Series
- Past AARC Exhibits
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Colonized Women: Reclaiming Our Indigenous Roots
Reinventions, A Senior Art Show