“Healing, Radical Hope & Community Care” Art Exhibit at the Atlanta Central Library

Client: Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta | Year: 2022

In 2022, Advancing Justice-Atlanta and reimagine collective worked together to bring an art exhibit to the Atlanta Central Library for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. The exhibit, titled Healing, Radical Hope & Community Care, was first commissioned as part of a Day of Remembrance event for the Atlanta spa shootings that occurred on March 16, 2021.

As part of the reimagine collective team, Kavi Vu and I collaborated on the design and installation of the exhibit, while our colleague Elaine Kathryn Andres wrote copy for the introduction, brochure, and landing page.

Exhibit Design

Working alongside Advancing Justice-Atlanta, Kavi and I visited the Atlanta Central Library to determine where to place the six art boards and Community Wish Tree, which we originally conceptualized in a variety of ways — bringing a potted tree inside, hanging wishes from the ceiling, or using a live tree outside on the library grounds. In the end, we decided having a fake tree was easiest to manage; we did not want to burden the library staff with maintaining a live tree inside, nor could we risk having paper tags blow away from a tree outside.

We debated the placement of the artwork, considering the use of display stands to keep the pieces together in the same vicinity. Ultimately, however, we chose to use the large front wall and standing gallery walls to encourage people to walk around and observe the pieces. Each art placard included a QR code that could be scanned for an audio clip of the artist speaking about the piece.