Throughout most of May, Baltimore’s Station North Arts District will be filled with Asian arts and culture, thanks to the 7th Annual Asia North Exhibition and Festival.
Running from May 2 through May 31, the festival honors the history of the Charles North neighborhood, once home to a thriving Koreatown, and celebrates the continued cultural diversity of the area.
The Asia North Exhibition and Festival are produced by a collaboration between the Central Baltimore Partnership (CBP) and the Asian Arts & Culture Center (AA&CC) at Towson University, to showcase the creativity, diversity, and talent of Baltimore’s Asian Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern, and Desi-American (APIMEDA) community.
The festival will offer art exhibitions, creative performances and gatherings, walking tours, and food tastings. In addition, this year’s festival will feature EXCEEDS EXPECTATIONS, a exhibition guest-curated by Baltimore-based Taiwanese American artist Phaan Howng with Nerissa Paglinauan.
EXCEEDS EXPECTATIONS features the work of 25 artists of the APIMEDA diaspora who have come to call Baltimore and the surrounding area home. Howng’s exhibition will fill more than 15,000 square feet of space in the Historic North Avenue Market and Motor House and aim to challenge preconceptions of AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islander) art during AAPI Heritage Month. Using humor, visual appeal, and unconventional artworks, the exhibit offers a multi-faceted exploration of Asian identity.
“I’ve always wanted to challenge the typical, identity-heavy and stereotypical artwork often seen at AAPI Heritage Month exhibitions,” Howng said. “When invited to be the guest curator for this year’s Asia North exhibition, I was excited to showcase talented Baltimore and DMV artists whose works are fun, visually engaging, and cleverly humorous, pushing against both Western orientalist views and cultural preconceptions within our own communities. I also wanted to highlight Baltimore’s impressive APIMEDA artists and their contributions to the local art scene, which many may not be aware of.”
This year, the Asia North exhibition will expand to include two vacant spaces, new multimedia and video artworks, and a creative wayfinding program featuring an asphalt art installation along North Avenue using the “alphabet” from Sejong Cho’s paintings (one of the artists featured in the exhibition) that will help point visitors in the right direction.
For more information about the 7th Annual Asia North Exhibition and Festival, please click this link.