May is Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month!
May is Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month (Hero Image: "Yangge: Dance of the Bride" by Yumei Hou, 2022, SFMTA Central Subway Chinatown-Rose Pak Station, Photo Credit: Ethan Kaplan Photography)
The San Francisco Arts Commission celebrates and recognizes our AAPI Artists, Grantees, artworks and commissioners, and the invaluable contributions of all AAPI artists that have helped shape San Francisco’s art and cultural landscape.
Learn more about AAPI Heritage Month activities happening in San Francisco
Featured Artists and Artwork:
Erina Alejo is a Filipinx San Francisco Arts Commission Grantee, an artist, and cultural worker, who uses their lens as a third-generation San Francisco tenant in making art that nurtures our narratives, power, and community cultural wealth. Depicted in this post is an excerpt of ‘My Ancestors Followed Me Here,’ a piece that recorded what Alejo saw on a walk down San Francisco’s Mission Street during COVID-19.
(Photo Courtesy of Evelyn Anderson)
Ranko Ogura Dance is currently a San Francisco Arts Commission Grantee. Her current project with SFAC is titled, Land of KAMUI an on-stage dance performance based on the myth of the Ainu tribe. This performance represents their faith, ritual, and devotion to Kamui, the god of nature through a collaboration of contemporary dance, Butoh, and Ainu folk dance. As the Artistic Director Ranko will explore the mode of storytelling that unifies film, animation, and dance performances together with traditional costumes and musical instruments.
(Image Courtesy of the Artist)
Celebrating Bay Area Arts by Paul Madonna | 1/6 posters (Grant Street featuring quote from best-selling Asian American author Amy Tan) Commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission for the SFAC 2012-2013 Art on Market Street Poster Series. 
Standing thirty-five feet tall, Ether is the first permanent artwork in the United States by Japanese artist Kohei Nawa. Resonating with the movement of nearby airplanes, the sculpture explores the concept of gravity, defied during takeoff, but used during landing. The form of the sculpture visualizes a droplet of liquid falling from sky to earth. It changes shape as gravity propels it downward, but encounters an equal counter force thrusting skyward. The resulting form is a symmetrical and potentially infinite column created within a space of zero gravity.
(Photos Courtesy of Ethan Kaplan Photography)
Asian American Artist, Sarah Sze’s, Double Horizon was created from a single boulder split open like a geode to reveal a pixelated image of the sky embedded within the stone's interior The same image is mirrored in the pavers of the walkway, as if the rock, functioning as a printmaking stamp, has fixed the image in place through force of gravity and pressure. By recording a fleeting moment of skyscape in stone, Sze explores the fragility of passing time and the desire for permanence in the face of always-shifting natural forces
(Photos Courtesy of Ethan Kaplan Photography)
From the Twitter Whale to Dumpling Emoji, Disney Shanghai Mickey Mouse to Conan O'Brien Pale Whale, Yiying Lu creates iconic designs and brands which transcend the linguistic barriers, unite people and enchant audiences around the world. She is also a sought-after bilingual speaker in both English and Chinese on topics of cross-cultural design, creativity, and innovation at global conference such as SXSW, TEDx, Adobe MAX, Web Summit and so on.
Yiying Lu is an award-winning artist, entrepreneur, educator, and bilingual speaker.
(Image Courtesy of the Commissioner)
Oakland-based artist Kimberley Acebo Arteche explores the impact of colonialism on self-identity. Working in textiles, photography, and performance, Arteche reconnects herself to indigenous Filipino traditions that she and many other Filipino Americans have been separated from. In the textile works in the exhibition Arteche uses some of the traditions she learned while in the Philippines, to amplify the voice of the women whose voices have been made obscure by patriarchy and colonialism.
(Image Courtesy of the Artist)
Commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission for the SFAC 2023 Art on Market Street Poster Series. Finding Filipino features 9 illustrated vignettes by Oakland-based artist Rina Ayuyang that commemorate the history and contributions made by the Filipino community in San Francisco. The works were on view along Market Street between 7th and Steuart streets at 15 SFMTA transit shelters from April to June 2023.
(Image Courtesy of the Artist)