AAPI Heritage Month 2024

AAPI HERITAGE MONTH CELEBRATION

May 5, 2024 | 10 AM - 4 PM

Celebrate Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month at KID Museum!

Join us for KID Museum’s AAPI Heritage Month Celebration where we will honor the historical and cultural contributions made by people of Asian and Pacific Islander descent. Meet local makers and organizations dedicated to preserving heritage through games, arts, and making!

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Event Details

Woodwork Exploration: Taiwanese Traditions with Taiwan Fun

10 AM - 4 PM

Step into the enchanting legend of Linli the Pangolin with Taiwan Fun. Craft collaborative wooden sandals with bolts and knobs, team up to walk on the wooden clogs to wake up the pangolin, and welcome summer!

“Wearing Clogs and Waking up the Pangolin” is a legend based in TaiChung, Taiwan. The legend narrates the story of a special golden pangolin called Linli. Linli is a guardian for agriculture and helps plants grow strong for harvest time. During the Dragon Boat Festival, people bang pots, pans, and stomp in wooden clogs to wake Linli up to welcome the sunny days of summer.

Play Go: Unleash Your Inner Strategist with the National Go Center

10 AM - 4 PM

Discover the ancient and captivating Asian game of Go with the National Go Center. Dive into the fascinating world of strategy and skill as you learn the rules, solve puzzles with expert players, and take on challenges.

The National Go Center, a non-profit corporation in Washington, D.C., promotes education for children and adults in Go (Weiqi or Baduk), fostering cross-cultural communication and awareness of its Asian cultural origins.

Chinese Folklore with East Rising Lion Dance Troupe

10:45 AM - 12 PM

Learn the art of this traditional performance and join the parade as the lion brings good luck, happiness, and prosperity to all.

10:45 – 11:15 AM dance performance
11:15 AM – 12 PM showing dance movements and photo opportunity

The East Rising Lion Dance Troupe has been performing in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area for over 15 years to promote Chinese folk culture.

Koto Quest: Discovering Japan's Musical Traditions with the Washington Toho Koto Society

12 - 2 PM

Discover the enchanting sounds of the koto and immerse yourself in the beauty of traditional kimonos.

12 – 1 PM kimonos and intro to the instrument
1 – 2 PM Koto performance

The Washington Toho Koto Society is a nonprofit group of koto players and friends, primarily in the Washington metropolitan area, founded in 1971 by Kyoko Okamoto to promote the understanding and appreciation of Japanese koto music.

Meet a Maker: Artist Adele Kenworthy

10 AM - 1 PM*

Join artist Adele Kenworthy in her Flowerhands workshop rooted in her Korean traditions. Discover the art of nail dyeing using rose balsam flower powder. Craft your own paste and adorn your nails or experiment with dyeing various materials.

Flowerhands is a multi/intergenerational workshop that invites participants to explore the traditional Korean practice of natural nail dyeing with rose balsam flowers, fostering collective care and liberation through gestures of adornment rooted in Adele’s personal memories with her mother.

Adele Yiseol Kenworthy is an artist organizer and her vulnerability is her superpower. She explores how flowers have dyed, draped, and nourished social movements; what it means for socially engaged art to exist as an embodied practice of care; and, tends the spaces of cultural memory and art as reimagined heritage work.

*Adele will only be in the museum for this time; however, the activity will remain open until 4 PM.

Meet a Maker: Artist Kim Sandara

10 AM - 1 PM*

Unleash your creativity and inner strength with artist Kim Sandara as we dive into the world of Naga dragons and Lao culture. Learn about the symbolism of the majestic water dragon and help us build a giant Naga dragon with your personal message of strength and joy!

Kim Sandara is a bi, genderqueer, Lao/Vietnamese American, multidisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Using abstract painting, stop motion animation and cartooning, their work focuses on queer escapism, intergenerational trauma, and intersectional identity.

*Kim will be in the museum from this time; however, this activity will continue on all Sundays at KID Museum in May.

Celebrating Asian American & Pacific Islander #HistoryMakers

Charita Castro, PhD

Social Science Researcher

According to social scientist Charita Castro, “Data can change the world!” As a child of the Filipino diaspora and the daughter of Asian immigrants, Charita feels it her personal duty to lift up others. She is especially concerned with children around the world who are forced to work rather than go to school. Charita’s work so far has focused in West Africa and Malaysia, where children are forced to produce cocoa and cell phones. Her investigations into forced labor have changed the lives of 152 million children around the world. She is currently serving as a senior official at the U.S. Department of Labor.

Charita Castro, PhD
Social Science Researcher

Phaan Howng

Artist

What could the future look like on an Earth without humans? Through the use of theatrical elements Phaan Howng creates paintings and immersive installations around that very idea, encouraging viewers to reflect on current ecological conditions and their role in creating them. Having received her Master of Fine Arts from Maryland Institute College of Art, her vibrant artwork is grounded by research into landscape theory, anthropology, and history. She has presented solo exhibitions at museums including the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Smithsonian, and MoCA Arlington, and her work has been featured in publications ranging from her local paper, the Baltimore Sun, all the way to The New York Times T List. Most recently, she contributed her art to a live orchid installation in the courtyard at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art called “The Future of Orchids.”

Phaan Howng
Artist

Adele Yiseol Kenworthy

Socially Engaged Artist-Organizer

Adele Yiseol Kenworthy is a first generation Korean American artist-organizer whose superpower is vulnerability. As a graduate of the inaugural cohort of the Master of the Fine Arts in Social Practice Art at the Corcoran School of Art and Design, Adele sees their artistic practice as a reimagining of heritage work, similar to tending a garden of cultural memory. In her work, she often explores how flowers have dyed, draped, and nourished social movements. Adele has exhibited at Transformer Gallery, DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Brentwood Arts Exchange, The Fearless Artist Pop up Gallery at Art Basel Miami, Gallery 102 at George Washington University, and NEXT (2022) Festival at the Corcoran School of Art and Design. They have also been included in the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art’s “We Should Talk” exhibit.

Adele Yiseol Kenworthy
Socially Engaged Artist-Organizer

Seda Nak

Curator, Community Organizer, & Entrepreneur

Seda Nak is a co-curator for the art collective SAMASAMA, where she develops events, exhibitions, and workshops centering BIPOC narratives and heritage through art. As the creator and owner of the specialty retail and neighborhood-focused stores Hometown and Shopkeepers, she believes in the power of independent businesses to organically lead conversations surrounding cultural diversity. For Seda, this mission is personal. As a child of Cambodian refugees, Seda is exhausted by the ignorance surrounding the Asian demographic. Seda is also one of the co-creators of “The Color Curtain Project,” an artist book and culinary project influenced by Richard Wright’s 1955 work “The Color Curtain, A Report on the Bandung Conference.” This series of culinary and artist books brings individuals of African- and Asian-American identities together to break bread, learn history, and share stories, encouraging constructive dialogue around social justice challenges.

Seda Nak
Curator, Community Organizer, & Entrepreneur

Dr. Rajan Natarajan

Scientist, Entrepreneur, & CEO of Global Alliant, Inc.

Growing up on a farm in India, Dr. Rajan Natarajan never believed he would be where he is today, as Founding Chairman and CEO of Global Alliant, Inc., an information technology and software development firm. Dr. Rajan, who specializes in bioscience, has published his research more than 50 times, filed a U.S. patent for a new invention, and served in multiple roles in the Maryland state government, including Deputy Secretary of State for Policy and External Affairs. In addition to his Ph.D. in Biotechnology, he holds two masters degrees in Biosciences from the University of Madras, India, and a Master of Business Administration from Michigan State University. Recently, he founded The Natarajan Family Scholarship to support underprivileged high school students pursuing degrees in STEM. The motto behind all of his work is “Listen, Learn, and Lead.”

Dr. Rajan Natarajan
Scientist, Entrepreneur, & CEO of Global Alliant, Inc.

Amanda Nguyen

Entrepreneur, Activist, & CEO of Rise

Since 2021, members and allies of the AAPI community have banded together around the #StopAsianHate movement ignited by a video produced by activist Amanda Nguyen. She called on media organizations to report the 150% increase in anti-Asian hate crimes following the Covid-19 pandemic, and, by using her voice, she has inspired others to take to the streets. Amanda’s activism has always focused on the intersection of race and gender. In 2014, she founded Rise, a civil rights organization that helped pass the Sexual Assault Survivor’s Rights Act through congress. She chose the name Rise to “remind us that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can rise up and change the world.”

Amanda Nguyen
Entrepreneur, Activist, & CEO of Rise

Kim Sandara

Fine Artist & Illustrator

Kim Sandara is a bi, genderqueer, Lao/Vietnamese American, multidisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY. In 2016, they graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in General Fine Arts. Using abstract painting, stop motion animation, and cartooning, their work focuses on queer escapism, intergenerational trauma and intersectional identity. Kim was first noticed by the Washington Post for their “music paintings,” an abstract expressionist series produced in a stream-of-consciousness style while listening to music. They expanded on this practice with their “270 Million Project,” producing 270 ink paintings that each correspond to 1 million American cluster bombs dropped in Laos during the Vietnam War. Kim has also produced murals, horror zines, and graphic novels, including a forthcoming memoir about their coming out story.

Kim Sandara
Fine Artist & Illustrator

Donny Trương

Designer, Web Developer, & Creative

Donny Trương has been designing and developing web experiences for twenty years. For his final graduate thesis at George Mason University School of Art, he wrote “Vietnamese Typography” – a book that has quickly become an essential guide for designing Vietnamese diacritics, the markings that help readers to distinguish pronunciation between letters, like accent marks (é, ö, ú) or cedillas (ç, ʂ). You can even see two of them in Donny’s last name. Type designers around the world have used Donny’s work as a guide to help them understand the unique typographic features in Vietnamese, learning the subtle details and the nuances of the Vietnamese writing system, helping improve the readability of Vietnamese text on screens.

Donny Trương
Designer, Web Developer, & Creative

Alice Wong

Disabled Activist, Writer, Editor, & Community Organizer

Ever want to blend in and not be noticed? That's how Alice Wong felt growing up as one of very few Asian American students and one of the very few who were physically disabled in her school. Alice felt that she stuck out in undesirable ways and struggled with internalized racism and the desire to blend in. When she was in her twenties, Alice started to fight for access and visibility on her own terms. Working to enact systemic change, she began to conduct research and provide assistance to others with disabilities, and in 2013, was appointed by President Obama to the National Council on Disability. In 2014, she launched the Disability Visibility Project to elevate the voices and stories of disabled people, “I want to create a world that is reflective of all of us. This is my life’s work.”

Alice Wong
Disabled Activist, Writer, Editor, & Community Organizer

Access for Every Maker

KID Museum is dedicated to expanding access to STEM and maker learning opportunities for all by providing free and reduced-cost opportunities to participate in our programming.

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