Since the term “Asian American” was coined by activists in 1968 to foster a sense of community among a diverse population, those identifying as Asian American or Pacific Islanders (AAPI) have found ways to embrace, challenge, and organize around this expansive social category.
The AAPI gallerists featured here offer insights from New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago into their efforts to cultivate inclusive and impactful communities around their programs. Their approaches include working directly with nearby AAPI-owned businesses, taking risks on previously marginalized voices and perspectives, supporting artists’ projects that treat exhibition spaces as social laboratories, and actively pushing back against the model minority myth and other harmful stereotypes in their day-to-day interactions.
Here, we speak to the names behind five AAPI-owned galleries about how they are creating inclusive communities around their programs.
