American Asian - Group Exhibit at Asian Pacific American Heritage Month

Curated by Nicole Kang, “American Asian” brings together Atlanta artists of Asian descent to explore heritage, memory, and the “third culture” experience at Avondale Arts Center. The result is both intimate and expansive. Featuring 16 Georgia-based artists of Asian descent, the group show offers a multimedia look at the “third culture” experience. 

Our Mothers, Our Water, Our Peace - Artist Gyun Hur

Rooted in the experiences of the Atlanta Asian community, Our mothers, Our water, Our peace explores grief, resilience, and the power of collective healing. Created in response to the rise in anti-Asian violence during the pandemic and the tragic 2021 Atlanta spa shootings, this project speaks to universal themes of loss, remembrance, and the ongoing search for belonging. Through gathering, reflection, and storytelling, Gyun Hur invites audiences to consider how we hold grief, honor our histories, and foster intergenerational connections across communities.

In 2024, 100 delicate glass vessels filled with water from local rivers and creeks were placed in public and private spaces across Atlanta. Locations included Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Atlanta, the Asian American Advocacy Fund, the Lawrenceville Arts Center, the Alliance Theatre’s Hertz Stage, and 12 individual Asian American family homes. These vessels, installed with the support of artist and community liaison Nicole Kang Ahn, became quiet yet profound symbols of healing, care, and justice—markers of the unseen labor of remembrance and resilience.

The vessels returned to form a communal site of reflection, remembrance, and connection at The Goat Farm, coinciding with the fourth anniversary of the 2021 Atlanta spa shootings. As a living archive, the installation illuminates often invisible histories—the labor of love, the weight of loss, and the strength of those who continue to build, resist, and dream.

Threads of Justice - Asian American Advocacy Fund

Threads of Justice celebrates the vast and rich Asian American communities that possess rich histories of resisting and organizing for civil and human rights, intertwining with one another to weave beautiful, expansive tapestries of collaboration and cross-solidarity. Twelve local artists envision what the future of art and activism can look like as we move forward together using denim jackets as their canvases. Threads of Justice visualizes our collective resilience through reimagining how justice and belonging can pull inspiration from the past while transforming both the present and the future.

In the past two decades, we have seen unprecedented growth in Georgia. Our population has more than doubled. This growing presence was harnessed in the elections of 2020, during which Asian American organizing and engagement, in solidarity with other communities of color, played a vital role. Throughout our vibrant and complex histories, we display the capacity to evolve from and beyond the past and present to fashion and weave a future that includes every Thread and holds all of our stories, while leaving space for the stories that remain to be told.

As Creative Director of this project for Asian American Advocacy Fund, we commissioned and collaborated with 12 local AAPI artists. The artists utilized denim pieces as canvases. The exhibit was displayed in Chamblee in 2023, on the Atlanta Beltline, and at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in 2024.