April Recap & Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month

For those of you who don’t already know, May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage month. Exciting stuff folks! To help usher in a month of celebration and recognition, here is a list of really cool, really beautiful creatives and their projects.

Giphy released a collection of GIFS for Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month celebrating historymakers, celebrities, Q&A reactions, and more from AAPI communities.

Film/TV

Brown Girls – Trailer from Open TV (beta) on Vimeo.

Brown Girls is an awesome new webseries from the creative minds of Fatimah Asghar and Sam Bailey. It features a cast and crew that is made up of people of colour, women and non-binary folks. The story revolves around best friends Leila, played by Nabila Hossein and based on Asghar, and Patricia, played by Sonia Denis and based on Asghar’s real-life bff/platonic life partner, Jamila Woods, as they navigate young adulthood in Chicago. The characters and their relationships give off a natural sincerity as they tell stories by and for people of colour, weaving in different intersections of identity that make the show relatable without losing complexity.

Binge watch it here!

Yasmine Al Massri is a Lebanese-born American/French actress of Palestinian and Egyptian descent. She made her film début in the the 2007 critically acclaimed Lebanese LGBTQ-themed comedy-drama film, Caramel by Nadine Labaki. Now she stars alongside Priyanka Chopra, playing badass identical twin FBI agents Nimah and Raina Amin in the ABC thriller Quantico.

NBC Asian America Presents: A to Z (2017) is a four minute video that highlights 26 emerging voices of the AAPI community, redefining what it means to be Asian American and/or Pacific Islander today.

Visual Art

Poster for the Janus Films/Criterion Collection re-release of Tampopo.

Ping Zhu’s loose, colourful illustrative style has been seen in a number of different publications and projects, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, GOOD Magazine, and more.

Screenshot of @not__sari Instagram account.

@not__sari is a Toronto-based Tamilian Instagram account (and soon to be online store?) by graphic designer @notpranavi. Her designs include collages, graphics, pins and more, and explore things like parental pressures and microaggressions from white people from a Tamilian-Canadian perspective. She also makes really cute samosa graphics.

Wen Wen is an artist and model who has gained attention recently for being the Bay Area’s “internet flower boy” (is that a term I should know?). His Instagram bio says he is “the human embodiment of tofu,” which makes a lot of sense since he seems to have perfect glowy skin (and also perpetual cool hair). He also happens to be transgender. And it may lowkey highkey be my goal to meet + interview him.

Screenshot of @manjitthapp Instagram.

Manjit Thapp is a UK-based illustrator who makes prints, t-shirts, tote bag,s stickers, and more. Shop her prints here!

By Amy Ni.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Email us at asianartscollective@gmail.com.