59 min
APEX Express – 6.16.22- Celebrating Arts KPFA - APEX Express
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- Politics
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
June Celebrating Arts – Show Transcript
[00:00:00] Opening: Asian Pacific expression. Unity and cultural coverage, music and calendar revisions influences Asian Pacific Islander. It’s time to get on board. The Apex Express. Good evening. You’re tuned in to Apex Express.
[00:00:18] Jalena Keane-Lee: We’re bringing you an Asian American Pacific Islander view from the Bay and around the world. We are your hosts, Miko Lee and Jalena Keane-lee the powerlee girls, a mother daughter team,
In honor of Asian-American Pacific Islander heritage month, we’re highlighting the ways that you can celebrate in the bay area and beyond.
[00:00:44] Miko Lee: Jason Bayani artistic director of Kearny street workshop. Welcome to apex.
[00:00:51] Jason Bayani: Thanks for having me.
[00:00:52] Miko Lee: We are so happy to learn about the 50th anniversary of, and a big gala that’s set for this weekend. June 11th. Tell us about your big event. That’s happening at the San Francisco mint.
[00:01:05] Jason Bayani: Yeah, we’re we’re about to have our 50th anniversary gala for Kearny street workshop. We’re the oldest, multi-disciplinary Asian Pacific American arts organization in this country founded in 1972. We wanted to celebrate all our 50 years of history at this gala that we’re having at the San Francisco mint. The name of the gala is titled to imagine is to exist 50 years of Kearny street workshop. And yeah we’re open to bring up. From all the different generations. And this is really going to be a celebration of those 50 years and a way for us to interact and share space together and to commemorate all the history of the many different communities of artists that have come through for all these decades
[00:01:52] Miko Lee: I know Kearny street was founded around the time of the political unrest of the seventies. Tell us about how Curtis street was founded and how that resonates today.
[00:02:04] Jason Bayani: In that time, there’s like many different forces swirling around. When we talk about the student movements the anti-war movements there’s just so many different things happening at that time. In Chinatown and what was remaining of Manila town at that moment you had different artists in that area decided to get together and one thing that hold on a second here, a second.
You have three different artists named Jim doll, Lord Joe Fu and Mike chin. They wanted to actually do workshops for youth at the time. They started doing like screen printing and, visual arts workshops. They were able to acquire space underneath the I hotel. those workshops expanded into more community-based workshops and like photography and literary workshops. They had a space underneath a hotel as a storefront under the hotel. The legendary Filipino poet Al Robeson was active there at the time. Jessica Hagadorn gangs of love there’s the, there has mentioned of a hour was like figure teaching workshops, that hotel and through chronicity workshop in, in, in this kind of a time period. And you had all that going on and, they will to create this currency workshop organization.
They operated out of that space until 1976 or 1977 when the residents of the hotel and all the different organizations that were based out of there, including us in not only us in, Clooney folks like Chinese progressive association we were all were evicted from this building. And a lot of our. Ties are, live our beginnings of rooted in community-based arts. And also at the, also through the intersection of art and activism.
[00:03:50] Miko Lee: Jason, tell me about what people will see when they walk into this gala celebration. The San Francisco mint is a really large space. So how are you taking it over an artifying it?
[00:04:03] Jason Bayani: Yeah. So when you en
A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.
June Celebrating Arts – Show Transcript
[00:00:00] Opening: Asian Pacific expression. Unity and cultural coverage, music and calendar revisions influences Asian Pacific Islander. It’s time to get on board. The Apex Express. Good evening. You’re tuned in to Apex Express.
[00:00:18] Jalena Keane-Lee: We’re bringing you an Asian American Pacific Islander view from the Bay and around the world. We are your hosts, Miko Lee and Jalena Keane-lee the powerlee girls, a mother daughter team,
In honor of Asian-American Pacific Islander heritage month, we’re highlighting the ways that you can celebrate in the bay area and beyond.
[00:00:44] Miko Lee: Jason Bayani artistic director of Kearny street workshop. Welcome to apex.
[00:00:51] Jason Bayani: Thanks for having me.
[00:00:52] Miko Lee: We are so happy to learn about the 50th anniversary of, and a big gala that’s set for this weekend. June 11th. Tell us about your big event. That’s happening at the San Francisco mint.
[00:01:05] Jason Bayani: Yeah, we’re we’re about to have our 50th anniversary gala for Kearny street workshop. We’re the oldest, multi-disciplinary Asian Pacific American arts organization in this country founded in 1972. We wanted to celebrate all our 50 years of history at this gala that we’re having at the San Francisco mint. The name of the gala is titled to imagine is to exist 50 years of Kearny street workshop. And yeah we’re open to bring up. From all the different generations. And this is really going to be a celebration of those 50 years and a way for us to interact and share space together and to commemorate all the history of the many different communities of artists that have come through for all these decades
[00:01:52] Miko Lee: I know Kearny street was founded around the time of the political unrest of the seventies. Tell us about how Curtis street was founded and how that resonates today.
[00:02:04] Jason Bayani: In that time, there’s like many different forces swirling around. When we talk about the student movements the anti-war movements there’s just so many different things happening at that time. In Chinatown and what was remaining of Manila town at that moment you had different artists in that area decided to get together and one thing that hold on a second here, a second.
You have three different artists named Jim doll, Lord Joe Fu and Mike chin. They wanted to actually do workshops for youth at the time. They started doing like screen printing and, visual arts workshops. They were able to acquire space underneath the I hotel. those workshops expanded into more community-based workshops and like photography and literary workshops. They had a space underneath a hotel as a storefront under the hotel. The legendary Filipino poet Al Robeson was active there at the time. Jessica Hagadorn gangs of love there’s the, there has mentioned of a hour was like figure teaching workshops, that hotel and through chronicity workshop in, in, in this kind of a time period. And you had all that going on and, they will to create this currency workshop organization.
They operated out of that space until 1976 or 1977 when the residents of the hotel and all the different organizations that were based out of there, including us in not only us in, Clooney folks like Chinese progressive association we were all were evicted from this building. And a lot of our. Ties are, live our beginnings of rooted in community-based arts. And also at the, also through the intersection of art and activism.
[00:03:50] Miko Lee: Jason, tell me about what people will see when they walk into this gala celebration. The San Francisco mint is a really large space. So how are you taking it over an artifying it?
[00:04:03] Jason Bayani: Yeah. So when you en
59 min