Asian American Artists Collective

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.

We achieve our goals through the dynamic tension between audience, art and activism. Although we self-identify as APIA (Asian Pacific Islander American) we simultaneously redefine the term to be inclusive of West Asian (Middle Eastern), South Asian, and Multi-Racial peoples. Through programs such as YAWP, Mango Tribe, Kitchen Poems, and Project A, we build solidarity across APIA communities, other communities of color, and beyond. Allying ourselves with other community owned resources, we seek to nurture individual and collaborative multi-disciplinary artistic expression by providing a space for creation, exhibition, and networking amongst APIA artists and the community at large. We embrace art as a valid and proactive response to the silence and injustice in our society, challenging ourselves and others to work towards social change.