Asian American Arts Alliance

10/14/2026

The numbers are in, and A4 raised over $136,000 at our annual benefit last week 🫨🤯🧧👏🗣️📣

We gathered our supporters across many different walks of life to celebrate our “Unbreakable Ties” at C H I N E S E T U X E D O. All proceeds will go towards supporting our programs and services for AAPI artists throughout next year.

The evening’s highlights included jaw-dropping performances from Alison Kuo, MeeMee Chin, and Priya Roy. This year’s honorees, Yao King & White Rabbit Trust, Padma Lakshmi, Joan Shigekawa, and Mariko Silver, delivered touching speeches that encouraged dinner guests to give and reaffirmed the importance of A4’s work. Sharing support across generations was a resounding theme of the evening. And we hope that their words will continue to resonate as we each give back in different ways that we can.

View photos from the evening on our website!

📸 Still1/Loreto Jamlig

10/10/2026

A4 is thrilled to welcome Angel Wu (Angel) as our Bloomberg Arts Intern for the 2026–2027 school year! 👏👏👏⁠
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Angel Wu (she/her) is a senior at The Bronx High School of Science and a recreational artist with more than 12 years of experience. Driven by curiosity, she likes to explore the possibilities of music, design, and painting. As a Girls Who Code scholar, Angel combines her interest in technology with her growing artistic practice to create personal works. Angel also enjoys connecting with artists across disciplines, including aspiring filmmakers, classical musicians, and oil painters. Through visits to museums, concerts, workshops, and other cultural spaces, she learns from artists and builds meaningful connections with her community. These experiences inspire her to remain an active community member and use art as a way to connect with others. She works with mediums such as colored pencils and watercolor to share her ideas, experiences, and perspective with the people around her.⁠
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Help us extend a warm welcome to Angel and gratitude for all the work she will be helping with! 👏👏👏

10/09/2026

Join A4 for our November Town Hall, which will be centered on creative writing and gather writers of all genres to share their work and knowledge with each other and the wider AAPI community.⁠
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Featured presenters include Asha Thanki, who will present on how narration can be a political tool, as seen in her debut novel, “A Thousand Times Before,” winner of the 2025 Balcones Prize and named one of the best books of 2024 by NPR and The Boston Globe.⁠
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We’ll also hear from Wendy Lu, an award-winning journalist who will present on her debut novel, “Casting April,” and the importance of disability representation in youth literature. “Casting April” was selected for the Indie Next List and Indies Introduce, and was called “one of the best surprises of 2026.”⁠
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🎟️ RSVP is required via our website ⁠
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📅 11/10, 6:30–8:30pm⁠
📍 Prime Produce

10/07/2026

A4’s annual benefit at C H I N E S E T U X E D O honored, among many, mother and daughter Joan Shigekawa and Mariko Silver. Christine Kuan presented awards featuring sculptures by Danny Yung with finishing touches from our sponsor New Project.

📸 Danté Crichlow/BFA.com BFA

Yao King with his parents. King received the Community Champion Award, presented by Edward Pokropski.

Selfie time!

The vibes were on point.

All speakers emphasized the importance of resource sharing, whether it was from mother to daughter or investor to artist. Sharing support across generations was a resounding theme of the evening.

There is no one like .

10/07/2026

THANK YOU to everyone who joined last night for A4’s annual benefit at Chinese Tuxedo in downtown New York City, where we gathered our supporters across many different walks of life to celebrate our “Unbreakable Ties” — the invisible thread that connects us.

📸 Danté Crichlow/BFA.com BFA

Many attendees turned up wearing their support for AAPI artistry and culture—one of the best parts of A4’s benefit dinners!

C H I N E S E T U X E D O, a Manhattan Chinatown staple, provided excellent service throughout the evening. The menu deserves its own spotlight as a culinary experience: Steamed snow pea leaves, branzino with ginger, stir fried beef sirloin, squid ink noodles, oxtail baos, and themed cocktails. The dessert course: crème brûlée custard tart and moon over mango.

Michelle Pham 🐚 of Inner Child delivered opening remarks

MeeMee Chin and Alison Kuo performed Chinese opera in full makeup and costume, one of the many performances of the evening

The evening’s highlights included touching speeches from this year’s honorees Yao King, Padma Lakshmi, Joan Shigekawa, and Mariko Silver.

Awards featured sculptures by Hong Kong-based artist Danny Yung, with finishing touches by our sponsor New Project

Honoree Yao King with his family and artist supporters

Dinner guests received gifts generously provided by Milk, Pearl River Mart, Ava Chin, Christine Alcalay, and a copy of The Amp — bundled into an exquisite bag from Inner Child.

The camera was in love with

10/03/2026

You have a vision, script, or even the team – but no idea how to break through financing, production, or distribution. So what does it actually take to get your project financed?⁠
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Join us for an intimate two-hour workshop led by thomas percy kim (who raised $1.6M in crowd-equity for ISLE CHILD and is a co-founder of the independent film studio The Vandalist), your project will be pressure-tested with live feedback to get your project ready for the world of independent financing. Co-facilitated by Maaya, you’ll be in a small room of ambitious filmmakers and walk away with actionable steps to unblock bottlenecks and push your project to the next level.⁠
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📆 10/20, 6–8pm⁠
📍 A4⁠
🎟 This event is free and open to the public! RSVP is required. Capacity limited to 15.

10/02/2026

Limited amount of discounted tickets left for our AFTER PARTY at C H I N E S E T U X E D O, restoring a former opera house to its original glory ✨🪩🪭 Use promo code 25OFFAFTERPARTY

Featuring a newly commissioned performance from PRIYA and sounds by BaeJing

HOST COMMITTEE
Heather Bhandari
Kamala Buckner
Leo Chen
Amy Chin
Josh Cipkala-Gaffin
Ryna Dery
JiaJia Fei
Izumi Fukushima
Bindu George
George Hirose
Arlan & Lillian Huang
Reena Jana
Warren & Rochelle King
Alan Lo
Kunal Modi
Michelle Pham
Athena Robles
Oscar Wong
Townshine Wu
Serina Yamada
Joyce Yu & Ed Lai
Stephen Zaima

📸 Z🪽

09/30/2026

How can artists use their creative practice to respond to the moment, build solidarity, and support the communities they care about?⁠
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Join us for an interactive workshop exploring the intersection of art, activism, and community-building with multidisciplinary artist and activist Perry Yung, co-founder of slantperformancegroup. Limited to 15 spots — THIS WILL SELL OUT!⁠
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Inspired by the legacy of New York City’s and San Francisco’s Kearny Street Workshop, this participatory session invites artists to reflect on how creative practice can foster connection, resilience, and positive change through building solidarity.⁠
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📅 10/27⁠
📍 La MaMa ETC⁠
🎟️ RSVP required

09/24/2026

We're proud to announce the grantees of the second and final cycle of the A4 Arts Fund, a national initiative distributing $500,000 to arts and cultural organizations uplifting Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities.

Supported by The Wallace Foundation and the National Arts Regranting Partners, the A4 Arts Fund is the first initiative of its kind to provide dedicated funding to under-resourced arts and cultural organizations serving and championing AAPI communities. The fund supports organizations with annual budgets under $500,000 through general operating grants.

A4 received applications from 24 states, plus Washington, DC, and the US island territories of Guam and Northern Mariana Islands. The following 38 organizations across 14 US states and territories have each been awarded $10,000 or $15,000 grants depending on their organization’s size:

Asian American Arts Alliance supports the work of New York City's Asian American artists. Since 1983.

09/23/2026

Join us next time at A4’s bimonthly Town Halls and THANK YOU to whoever brought onigiri to the potluck 🍙 bit.ly/geta4news