Chinatown Art Brigade
Chinatown Art Brigade is a cultural collective of artists, media makers and activists creating art and media to advance social justice. Their work focuses on the belief that "collaboration with and accountability to those communities that are directly impacted by racial, social and economic inequities must be central to cultural, art, or media making process." Through art and public projections, CAB aims to share stories of Chinatown tenants to fight displacement and gentrification. Chinatown Art Brigade collaborates with the Chinatown Tenants Union of CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities, a non-profit organization that fights against tenant rights violation, evictions, and displacement of low-income pan-Asian communities.
History
Chinatown Art Brigade was co-founded by Tomie Arai, ManSee Kong, and Betty Yu in New York City in December 2015. Arai, a Japanese American public artist; Kong, a Chinese American filmmaker; and Yu, a Chinese American multimedia artist, shared similar experiences of social injustice towards people of Asian descent. Two of the three founders were raised by low-income Chinese immigrants. Their upbringing directly influenced their art making and motivated the establishment of a brigade to address the issues of racial, social, economic inequities faced by Asian Americans. More specifically, Chinatown Art Brigade seeks to fight against displacement and gentrification of Chinatown in New York City.As artists, Arai, Kong, and Yu recognized the power of art in advancing social justice. For this reason, CAB is fueled by the belief that social, economic, and political issues that affect people’s daily lives are central to any art making process. The artists believe that art is crucial as a means of communicating inequalities through an effective, universal, visual language that can be applied to and understood by various communities.
Including the co-founders, sixteen core members of different gender, age, and ethnic background form this cultural collective in collaboration with a large team from CAAAV’s Chinatown Tenant Association as well as volunteer groups.
Within a year the Brigade gained support from programs, including A Blade of Grass Fellowship, Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation, Asian Women Giving Circle, and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's Creative Engagement.