Asian American Women Artists Association (AAWAA) and the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center (APICC) join forces to present the multidisciplinary art exhibition Shifting Movements: Art Inspired by the Life & Activism of Yuri Kochiyama (1921-2014), as part of the 20th annual United States of Asian America Festival.

Shifting Movements is a multimedia exhibition featuring over 40 artists primarily from Asian American, Black, and Latinx communities, illuminating the legacy of intersectional revolutionary social activist Yuri Kochiyama. The artworks highlight the values and themes which guided her, and the incredibly diverse people, struggles, and movements that inspired a lifetime commitment to fighting for a more humane and just world.

Relating Kochiyama’s mission to our contemporary context, artists ruminate on a myriad of urgently relevant topics such as the similarities between WWII Japanese Internment and the festering post-9/11 Islamophobia, the experience of immigrants, refugees and people of color, structural racism and police violence, and the everyday labor that fuels substantive social change. Kochiyama showed up for all who needed help, including African, Asian, Latino, and Native American communities, and inspired artists across multiple cultures and generations. Honoring Kochiyama’s intended legacy of inspiring people to “build bridges, not walls”, Shifting Movements artists invite audiences to make connections between the past, present, and future – and each other.

AAWAA moves beyond the circle of Asian American women artists. Following the inclusionary philosophy championed by Kochiyama, this historically significant exhibition includes talented and powerful artists from multiple generations, ethnic backgrounds, and gender identities. Shifting Movements showcases provocatively brilliant art driven by the artists’ abiding passion for social justice.

In addition to art, film, performance and literary works, Shifting Movements will feature a Yuri Kochiyama biographical timeline, oral history recordings, the Smithsonian APA Center online exhibition Folk Hero: Remembering Yuri Kochiyama Through Grassroots Art, and a community wall public art installation.

WHEN: May 4-25

Festival and Exhibition Opening Reception: Thu, May 4 @ 6PM

Passing It On - Other Feminist Futures Panel Discussion: Sat, May 20 @ 2PM

Closing Reception: Thu, May 25 @ 6PM

MORE INFO: aawaa.net