Moon Gazing: A Call to Ancestors  

AN EXPLORATION OF ASIAN/ASIAN AMERICAN ARTISTS’ IDENTITIES, LIVED EXPERIENCES, AND WORKS OF ART

CURATED by Romana Lee-Akiyama

On View September 5 - September 22 

Opening Reception Saturday, September 7 From 4 - 7 pm 

Closing Reception and Artist Talk Sunday, September 22 From 12 - 2 pm

Featured Artists Chen Lok Lee, Chenlin Cai, Hanzi, Mel Hsu, Gina Kim, James Lee, Michelle Myers, Winnie Sidharta, Hanalee Akiyama, Joon Thomas, and Kumaji “Harry” Nakatsugawa

About the exhibition:

This September, millions of people of across the world will celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival by gathering together as family and in community to gaze at the bright full, harvest moon and eat delicious food, including fruit and special moon cakes filled with red bean paste and other sweet treats. It's also a time to remember family and loved ones who are no longer with us. For those who are separated from family members, whether because of distance, geography, or death, it can be a time to reflect and remember.

As Asians living in the United States, the deep traditions of cultural holidays and their meaning are sometimes lost, minimized or re-interpreted. 'Moon Gazing: A Call to Ancestors' is an exhibition designed to bring ancestral heritage into conversation with the present. Inspired by the work of the late painter, printmaker, and professor Chen Lok Lee (1927 - 2020), the exhibit will explore contemporary expressions of identity for Asian and Asian American artists with Philadelphia connections and call into conversation the dynamic tension that underrepresented and marginalized artists with hyphenated identities face in creating art. The exhibit explores the expectations of what is considered an authentic representation of Asian art, who Asian and Asian American artists get to be, and what they get to create based on the limitations or boundaries that they face in the field.

This fully immersive and multi-sensory experience will feature soundscapes that capture the joy and longing in the voices of an Asian American family; the visual works will provide faces, images, and expressions of ancestors long gone and those who have recently passed; newly created visual images that capture the exploration of identity, spiritual longing and the impermanence of all things; and stories told from the voices of those who are making sense and meaning of the distance and gaps that we feel as those separated from our homelands and longing for connection.

Chen Lok Lee, whose selected works are the centerpieces for the exhibit, developed his art over more than 50 years across three continents. Lee’s work will be in conversation with the following artists, bringing the past into the present, and causing us to examine what has or has not moved forward for artists of Asian descent.

Moon Gazing: A Call to Ancestors will be on view in Gallery 2 at Da Vinci Art Alliance starting September 5 until September 22. The opening reception will take place on Saturday, September 7, from 4-7 pm.

About the Curator

Romana Lee-Akiyama

Romana Lee-Akiyama is a global cross-sector leader at the intersection of social change, equity, community well-being, and the arts and culture. She is the founding director and curator of the Chen Lok Lee Legacy Project, which she established in March 2021 as a homage to her late father, a pioneering Asian immigrant printmaker, painter and professor. The Chen Lok Lee Legacy Project archives, preserves and promotes Lee’s works on paper, his migration story and his journey as an artist, serving as an inspiration to the next generation of artists.

Since launching the Chen Lok Lee Legacy Project, Romana has curated four exhibits in Philadelphia, centering themes of immigration, belonging, anti-Asian hate and violence, and what it means to create “home” for marginalized populations. In 2021, with initial seed funding from the Sachs Program for Arts Innovation at the University of Pennsylvania, Romana was able to successful launch the project, and ultimately curated EXCLUDED/INCLUSION, a year-long exhibit, at Penn’s Annenberg Center.

Growing up with two artists as parents, Romana was discouraged from pursuing a career in the arts. Instead, she established herself as a social worker, nonprofit professional, and public servant. At this juncture in her career, she is aligning her deep and wide experiences in multiple sectors to elevate the arts and push the boundaries of who gets to shape our mainstream narratives and stories.