Experience Chinatown 2024: Collective Actions Lead to a Healthy Chinatown
On Saturday, September 28, Pao Arts Center celebrated its seventh annual Experience Chinatown Arts Festival with a day of performances, activities, and exhibits. The festival brought artists, businesses, and community members together to celebrate Chinatown’s vibrancy and resiliency.
We were thrilled to welcome over 3,000 attendees to the largest Experience Chinatown festival to date. Visitors from as far as New Hampshire and New York enjoyed performances, activities, exhibits, and a mural scavenger hunt at Auntie Kay & Uncle Frank Chin Park, Pao Arts Center, and local businesses.
The day opened with a vibrant lion dance performance by the Kwong Kow Chinese School’s Youth Lion Dance team, who greeted guests with colorful lions. BU Bhangra then energized the audience with a lively performance of the traditional Indian folk dance. Kapatid Kud, a global fusion music duo from India and the Philippines brought vibrancy to the stage through joyful songs full of storytelling and light. After, hip-hop artist Kold Kwan energized attendees with lyrics inspired by his experience as an Asian-American growing up in Boston. Taking a quick shift from musical performance and for the first time in Experience Chinatown history, The Flavor Continues brought everyone into a circle for a dance cypher, welcoming anyone in the crowd to jump in to dance. JC Alula + her band finished the day by inviting everyone to sing along to upbeat Mando- and Canto-pop songs.
Off stage, visitors enjoyed activities from artists and partners. Pao Arts Center partner, Bunker Hill Community College, promoted their course offerings, BCNC celebrated 50 years of childcare, and ACDC hosted a SaturPLAY session. Audiences also learned more about public art initiatives in Chinatown. Maria Fong asked visitors to consider heat resilience by folding paper fans in their mobile Library Park Cart. Artists Joanna Tam, Anita Yip, and Ying Ye, from the Un-monument Initiative presented by Pao Arts Center, curated by Lani Asunción, in collaboration with the City of Boston Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture, supported by the Mellon Foundation, introduced community members audience to their public art projects.
Through the festival, visitors also went on a scavenger hunt throughout Chinatown to visit all 8 businesses and organizations activated with Experience Chinatown window murals. Thank you to our artists, Dana Balletta, Fu'una, Katelyn Lipton, ponnapa prakkamakul, Yuko Okabe, Sam Lê Shave, and Nell Valle, and host sites, APM Coffee, WakuWaku, Shōjō Boston, Sasaki, Q Restaurant, Happy Lamb Hot Pot, and BCNC for welcoming the murals from September 1 – October 27, 2024.
Chulan Huang, Mayor Michelle Wu’s Chinatown Liaison, even presented Pao Arts Center with a special award from the Mayor and the City of Boston acknowledging Pao Arts Center’s “invaluable contributions to the arts and for fostering cultural connections that strengthen our community.”
Special thanks to the performers who brought their energy and passion to the main stage at Auntie Kay & Uncle Frank Chin Park on the Greenway, to the public artists, partners, sponsors, 45 volunteers including those from the BCNC Bamboo Circle, and to the audience members for taking collective action for a healthy Chinatown.
The festival opened on September 1, with murals created by visual artists who collaborated with local businesses to respond to this year’s theme. Artists integrated color and design infuse distinct motifs reflecting the diverse background of the artist’s personal experiences and blend with the cultural fabric in Chinatown. Mural installations are core to the Experience Chinatown Festival and have rapidly grown as a counterpoint to the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-Asian hate, and its outsized influence on Asian-owned businesses. Through pairing art with local business, we proudly answer the question, “What collective actions can we take for a healthy Chinatown?” with a resounding and coordinated effort to great effect and will remain on view through October 27.