Asian American Resource Center Exhibits

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

Ancestral Visions | November 2025 – February 28, 2026

The AARC presents Ancestral Visions by Sandeep Chandran, on-view starting in early November 2025 in the AARC's Zen Garden Hallway. In Ancestral Visions, Chandran explores his family roots in Kerala, India through a combination of digital printed paintings and acrylic paintings made by hand. Chandran's work visualizes his intimate spiritual and diasporic experiences, creating historically rich and mythology-based worlds of healing, belonging, and homecoming. Taking inspiration and direction from culture bearers, art forms, and community rituals integral to Kerala, Chandran realizes his own internal world and visions of ancestry, culture bearing, and myth making in Austin, where he currently lives and works.

Diaspora Offering | 흩어진 이들의 식탁 | 遊子的獻禮 | 游子的献礼 | November 2025 - February 28, 2026

The AARC presents Diaspora Offering by Allen Yu and Sun-Jue Shin, on-view starting in early November 2025 in the AARC's Foyer Display Cases. In Diaspora Offering, Sun-Jue Shin and Allen Yu explore and provide a new world for traditional ceremonial objects and rituals to honor the deceased and sustain spiritual connection with generations past. In both Korean and Chinese cultures, fruits and flowers symbolize abundance and good fortune, reminders of heritage and tradition. In this installation, ceramic objects are reimagined through symbolic patterns and thoughtful arrangements, expressing a sense of displacement and the search for belonging. Created by two Asian artists living in Texas, these works are drawn from their shared experiences as drifters, distanced from their ancestral homelands.

Exact opening date and information on artist reception and artists’ remarks for both exhibits coming soon.

Interested in exhibiting at the AARC or leading a creative workshop?

Community Exhibits Program: Our Community Exhibits Program rotates exhibits on a seasonal basis. Exhibits are selected through our annual open call for artists and curators. If you are interested in exhibiting at the AARC please stay tuned to our socials, website, and newsletter, where we will announce any available opportunities to submit exhibit proposals for our Community Exhibits Program. We do not review any exhibit proposals or art portfolios outside of our open call submission period.

Creative Workshop Program: If you are an artist or creative interested in leading a workshop with us, please contact the AARC's general email at aarc@austintexas.gov.

Permanent and Semi-Permanent Installations

Lotus

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

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.

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