Over 90 minutes or so, audiences will experience some combination of dance, sci-fi, a tea ceremony, a magic garden, or perhaps a special meal, each presented by a different artist. <\/p>\n
Each of the nine artists represents a different Asian background and story with the totality of works taking over the entire third floor of the Asian Arts Initiative building on Vine Street in Chinatown. Audience members move from installation to installation, each person discovering a different set of shows, while seeing most of them.<\/p>\n
The artists, members of Philadelphia Asian Performing Artists<\/a>, \u201cwanted to do something that was connected to the city and also wanted to do something in their own individual art forms,\u201d said Joseph Ahmed, one of three directors, along with Bi Jean Ngo and Caitlin Alvarez. \u201cA living museum lets a number of different artists exist in the same piece and still have a lot of autonomy.<\/p>\n \u201cStory circles formed an anchor point for us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Story circle facilitators Izzy Sazak and Mieke D. gathered \u201celders\u201d from Chinese, Vietnamese, Indonesian, and Laotian groups, among others.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were not only receiving their stories but also are echoing back and being in real conversation about what we\u2019re experiencing as younger people,\u201d said Ahmed, whose father is Bangladeshi.<\/p>\n The artists wanted to learn both about what the elders experienced, but also, and more importantly, their \u201cdreams, hopes and sorrows for the future,\u201d Ahmed said, intermingling the elders\u2019 views with the artists.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a kaleidoscope,\u201d he explained. \u201cYou look into one portal for the future and the light splits and fractures into all these many different groups\u2019 visions for the future. It is communal and also intensely personal. You get a window into this group and you also get to live into each of these small performances and installation of individual worlds.\u201d<\/p>\n Lex Thammavong, a Philadelphia actor, attended an Indonesian story circle and watched a video of the Laotian one.<\/p>\n Thammavong\u2019s father was born in Laos. Thammavong\u2019s father\u2019s parents are Laotian and Thai \u2013 a Romeo and Juliet romance between two groups then at war. When Thammavong\u2019s father was a child, the family hid in the jungle, escaping from Laos to Thailand, and then ultimately settling in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n \u201cWith all the chaos, they made it through,\u201d Thammavong said. Thammavong\u2019s piece is a sci-fi work, \u201cSoutheast Asian Time Nomad.\u201d<\/p>\n In the piece, Thammavong portrays Sangha GlorpGlorp84, who has traveled from the future to Philadelphia \u201cto warn the audience of a future AI dystopia where the AI is also being used as a colonization and erasing genetic and academic history \u2013 our history as Asian people.\u201d<\/p>\n What Thammavong saw in the Laotian story circle impacted the actor.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Laotian group was very significant because most of those people were refugees,\u201d Thammavong said.<\/p>\n \u201cI was stricken by the ways refugees hold trauma and move through it. I think that a lot of Southeast Asian refugees have learned how to compartmentalize their feelings in order to survive, and I think that has given people a false notion that they are unfeeling.<\/p>\n \u201cI think there are different ways of saying \u2018I love you\u2019 and of grieving and expressing those feelings. I\u2019ve heard elders describe trauma in a very matter-of-fact way, but when you keep talking, you realize they want someone to listen. A lot of people aren\u2019t given that opportunity to just say what they\u2019ve seen. While trying to escape, so many of them had to split up as a family. They\u2019ve lost family members.\u201d<\/p>\n It leaves the younger generation, including Thammavong, with a dilemma. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to pry, and we don\u2019t want to bring up traumas that are not ours, but people opening up has encouraged me to be more curious and be more frank with my questions with my family and other Asian elders.\u201d<\/p>\n Thammavong noted that recent studies have shown that trauma impacts<\/a> people on a cellular level<\/a>, which then impacts their offspring<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are kind of left with this itch that we don\u2019t know where it came from,\u201d Thammavong said.<\/p>\n \u201cThose survival instincts are with us and make us more likely to develop anxiety and PTSD. Hearing about the trauma, no matter how much it pains me, is illuminating in a way. It makes me feel that I can understand where my parents come from, and where I come from.<\/p>\n \u201cIntergenerational trauma also implies intergenerational joy and resilience,\u201d Thammavong said. \u201cInstead of running from these histories, it\u2019s my duty and my birthright \u2014 and my gift and burden in the same vein \u2014 to earn these histories and to carry them.\u201d<\/p>\n The Living Museum run culminates with a free dinner and roundtable on Sunday, Oct. 26 at 4:30 p.m., coordinated by Asian Americans United,<\/a> the group that spearheaded a successful fight<\/a> against building a basketball arena in Center City near Chinatown. The roundtable, organized by Mel Hsu, will bring together artists, activists, and attendees to network on how activism and art can impact the future of Philadelphia\u2019s Asian communities.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a synopsis of the rest of the lineup:<\/p>\n \u201cAncestors in Training Cooking School\u201d by Mieke D, designed for an audience of one, so only a handful of audience members at each performance will be able to experience this performance in a shape-shifting kitchen.<\/p>\n \u201cAmrita and Kalinda\u2019s Most Excellent Adventure\u201d by Sarbani Hazra, with an unstoppable mother-daughter duo exploring past and future.<\/p>\n \u201cBirthright\u201d by Juptej Singh. His family is from Punjab, but being born here, he can only experience it as an outsider, but he also feels outside the American dream, whatever that is.<\/p>\n \u201cBountiful Garden\u201d by Marcie Mamura, an evolving garden, a place to gather and connect.<\/p>\n \u201cComing Home\u201d by Geatali Tampy, a dance movement piece envisioning a dream of a future with safety, community, healing, being, and sharing.<\/p>\n \u201cNinuno\u201d by Josh Marquez, an immersive musical performance involving the sonic tapestry of Philadelphia\u2019s Asian voices. \u201cNinuno\u201d translates to ancestor in Tagalog, the language used in the Philippines.<\/p>\n \u201cPearls of Our Dragon\u201d by Alex Shaw draws its inspiration for the interweaving of time, translation, and location from the ancient Chinese tea ceremony.<\/p>\n \u201cTracer\u201d by Dan Kim. The oldest man in the world tries to record a video of his identity before it is erased.<\/p>\n FYI<\/p>\n \u201cLiving Museum: Philly Asian Futures\u201d<\/a> Oct. 22-26, Philadelphia Asian Performers Artists,<\/a> Asian Arts Initiative,<\/a> 1219 Vine St., Phila. <\/p>\n Tickets at Eventbrite<\/a> for the shows and on a separate Eventbrite listing<\/a> for the dinner and roundtable. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A museum visit is often a trip into the past \u2014 pottery or bones, portraits painted decades or…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4877,7447,7448,227,94,69,7449,71,70,7450],"class_list":["post-8789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-arts","tag-asian-americans","tag-asian-arts-initiative","tag-education","tag-history","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-asian-performing-artists","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-philly-asian-futures"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/philly-asian-futures-logo.png\"){kind=logo}
A coalition of artists from Philly\u2019s diverse pan-Asian community collaborated to present a multi-disciplinary, multi-ethnic imagining of the future \u2013 not the past \u2014 in \u201cLiving Museum: Philly Asian Futures,\u201d running Oct. 22-26, 2025. (Courtesy Philly Asian Futures)<\/p>\n