On Saturday at the Crow Museum of Asian Art of the University of Texas at Dallas, visitors watched a matcha tea demonstration and a screening of short films by Asian American Pacific Islander Texan filmmakers.

Attendees could enjoy these new experiences beyond the museum’s exhibitions because of the Crow Museum’s collaboration with the Dallas Asian American Art Collective, a grassroots organization of local Asian American creatives.

The museum was established in 1998 and now has two locations with its UTD location receiving about $23 million in support funding from The Trammell and Margaret Crow family. Meanwhile, the art collective, also known as DAART, launched in 2023 with just a handful of people and has grown to include dozens of Asian American artists.

By partnering together, the Crow Museum is able to reach a young, community-driven audience while DAART can access the museum’s resources and platform. It’s making way for a new generation of local Asian American artists who want to make art more personal and accessible.

Sara Greenberg, director of museum experience at the Crow Museum at UTD, said while the museum has partnered with other Asian and Asian American organizations in the past, a partnership with DAART felt ideal because of the group’s specific focus on art.

“That’s kind of like the perfect marriage of what we’re looking for in a partnership. People who are able to really highlight the creative endeavors of the Asian American community because as an art museum, we are really wanting to showcase storytelling through the medium of art,” she said.

Christina Hahn, who founded DAART, said it’s important for emerging organizations like DAART to build off the work that’s already happening at prominent institutions like the Crow Museum.

“I think it’s even better for us to be able to include the voices of Asian American artists who live here and for us to start collaborating with these organizations,” she said. “That way, we’d be able to get more people through the door, get them to know more about the Dallas Asian American Art Collective and also be able to share with them an incredible resource of the Crow Museum.”

The collaboration provided an opportunity for new audiences to visit the museum.

Noah Lauren Hua, 21, is a member of DAART who volunteered on Saturday. The Arlington resident makes press-on nails and develops chili oil recipes.

Because of the partnership, Hua was able to tour the Crow Museum for the first time and was pleasantly surprised.

“I wasn’t even expecting how much it would be all these color-coded rooms and then ending in this meditative rainbow dreamlike room was really really cool,” they said.

Hua doesn’t necessarily see themselves as a gallery artist but walking around the museum made them think about how their work might be presented publicly one day.

“Maybe my voice through my art, through the work that I make can be seen one day or it pushes you in a way that you wouldn’t even creatively see yourself in,” they said.

Alishba Javaid, who attended the matcha tea demonstration, writes about her identity as a Pakistani American in North Texas on social media. As a member of DAART, she said it’s important to “see what is the existing Asian and Asian American infrastructure in Dallas, how can we partner with them, and how can you build communities.”

The partnership also attracted out-of-towners like friends Sera Muyco, who is Filipino and Guamanian American, and Laura Kubiatko, who is half Chinese, who were visiting from Austin and the San Francisco Bay area respectively.

Kubiatko said she stumbled on the event online. Muyco, whose parents live in Dallas, said she was excited by the programming, particularly the matcha demonstration.

“I didn’t even know that they had this here at the UTD campus. I’ve kind of just searched in like bigger museums in bigger cities knowing that they have a wider breadth of resources to highlight those things,” Muyco said.

Kubiatko said she appreciated the tours because it helped her learn more about her heritage as a Chinese American.

“It really shows that there’s a long history and it’s also not something that’s constrained to the past. It’s constantly evolving and with the futures of Asian Americans will continue to evolve and I think that’s a beautiful concept,” she said.

Greenberg with the Crow Museum said the museum hopes to continue its partnerships with community organizations in the future.

“We definitely are looking towards strengthening our partnerships in the future with hopefully DAART and other organizations in the area as well,” she said.

The day of events at the museum rounded out two weeks of AAPI arts programming through the Ginger Roots Festival, which included an open mic night of poetry and performances, a Bollywood workshop and exhibition at 400h Gallery in Fort Worth.

A screening of three short films by AAPI Texan filmmakers and a panel discussion ended the day at the Crow Museum. Attendees watched Kayla Galang’s Learning Tagalog with Kayla, Sachin Dheeraj’s Men in Blue and Denise Johnson’s Hear Me Roar.

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