Talk:Asian American Artists Collective Chicago

Draft notes from Laura Kina (written in 2012 and proofed by Larry Lee and Anida Yoeu Ali) Asian American Artists Collective Chicago (2001-2005) Official description from our now defunct website (as found as of 2009 on http://www.chicagoartistsresource.org/node/1147)

“Founded on August 21, 2001 by Asian Pacific Islander American (APIA) artists from the Chicagoland area, the ASIAN AMERICAN ARTISTS COLLECTIVE (AAAC) is committed to creating intersections between art, audience, and activism. AAAC is a collaborative network of diverse Asian American voices dedicated to artistic development, support, and empowerment. Through the arts, AAAC works to confront, subvert and disrupt stereotypes, discrimination, prejudice, and oppression from the outside and inside of our communities.”

This Chicago, IL based artists group was active from 2001-2005. The group is officially dormant and we have let our site go dark but in actuality the collective partnerships have just morphed into splinter projects and smaller collaborations. AAAC (which in practice we referred to in shorthand as “the Collective.”) was an informal collective of APIA artists that consisted of up to 100+ artists and writers (film, performance, spoken word, slam poets, short story writers, comedians, visual artists, sound artists, curators etc.) that met on a regular basis in Chicago from 2001-2005. The Collective consisted of the following subgroups: Mango Tribe (touring feminist performance group); Kitchen Poems (writing circle inspired by workshops formerly run by author M. Evelina Galang); YAWP! (Young Asians With Power –youth writing & mentorship program); ProjectA (visual art group – curatorial, collective work, smaller collaborations). All four subgroups would meet in giant Collective meetings at the former graphic design loft space for Atomic Kitchen (co-owned by Anida Yoeu Ali and Anna Kong). Collectively, we attempted to put together annual interdisciplinary shows at the Foundation for Asian American Independent Media (FAAIM) April Asian American Showcase at the Gene Siskel Film Center. We also partnered with other groups such as SAPAC (South Asian Progressive Action Coalition) and I recall that we also did some one off showcases as a big group at other venues. Each subgroup has a long list of programming and activities.

The Collective was founded by Anida Yoeu Ali (formerly Anida Yoeu Esguerra) and Marlon Esguerra who borrowed the name from the organization they led during their undergraduate college years (1992-1996). Anida and Marlon (then husband and wife collaborators), founded the group in part because of their positive experiences in the early 1990s with collectivist action through their undergrad literary magazine, Monsoon, at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign published by the Asian American Artists Collective and their late 1990s and early 2000s spoken word tour with Emily Chang and Dennis “Denizen Kane” Kim in the group I Was Born with Two Tongues which they described as a “panAsian American spoken word quartet”. See their album Broken Speak, Asian Improv Records, 2003 http://www.amazon.com/I-Was-Born-Two-Tongues/dp/B000HKCSWG. Anida and Marlon were influenced by the Seattle collective Isangmahal (http://www.isangmahal.org/). As a former member and leader in DestinAsian, along with artist and curator Larry Lee, we also found ourselves merging efforts and blurring lines between that early work and what was missing from the FAAIM showcase model. Note that FAAIM was also our fiscal sponsor. Most importantly we felt we needed to collectivize across Asian ethnic lines in reaction to the 2001 anti-Muslim climate that followed 9/11. With our members’ heightened awareness of anti-Asian violence, the Collective created info packets titled Remembering Vincent Chin and RE:9/11 that were distributed locally and nationally. In the summer of 2003, The Collective hosted the 2nd ever National APIA Spoken Word and Poetry Summit hosted all over the city of Chicago including on the campus of DePaul University. In 2013, the APIA Summit will continue into its 7th national gathering in Washington D.C. The Collective arose at a time when the need for community & collective action proved to be a greater force than the lone individual creating art in his/her studio or apartment. According to Anida Yoeu Ali, The Collective’s ultimate demise (although not the only factor) came in its attempt to institutionalize itself with an official board and 501c3 status.