attendees viewing afterworlds zen garden exhibit

AARC 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

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.

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.

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.

Learn More

 

Past Exhibits

Past 2023 Exhibits

Jae-Eun Suh's "Ensemble Archives"

Finding Creativity in Resistance: The Legacy of Silk Club

Bridging the Seas

VEENY REVILLA "Sad Girls"

Afterworld: Zen Garden

Perlas Ng Austin: A Celebration of the Central Texas Filipino Community Through the Arts

Great Value! Heritage Objects and Da Kine: Jasmine Chock

Spine Songs: Irene June 

Past 2021 - 2022 Exhibits

A Sari Draped World 

ArtsResponders: Social Practice Responds to COVID-19 Featuring Lizzie Chen and Kengo

AVAFest 2022

CẢM ƠN MẸ

Filipino-American Navy

Lost Between.

MINDSET

 Mr. Huang's Calligraphy

Out of Service

Sweet and Sour

Seeking Community

Tradition's Rebirth in Modern Austin

Thank You Enjoy

Visions of Asia

Creative Highlights Video Series

Loc Huynh

Kevin Luo

Sneha Sundaram

Peter Shen

Kamonchanok Phon-Ngam

Charlotte Faye

Nutthawut Siridejchai

Mr. Huang

Past AARC Exhibits

A River Across East and West

Colonized Women: Reclaiming Our Indigenous Roots

Colors of Life

Courage To Be

Duality and Doko

Everything That Matters

Gingko Walk

Heritage

Inter/sected

Kingdom Arts

Let the Colors Speak

Perlas ng Austin (The Pearls of Austin): A Celebration of the Central Texas Filipino Community Digital Exhibit

Pink Lotus

Pioneer Painter

Reinventions, A Senior Art Show

Shen’s Precious Clocks and Watches

Storied & Pop Japan