Socially Engaged Art

Collaborating with non-profit art organizations in New York, Lily Honglei Art Studio is launching a series of public art projects designed for the Asian American and immigrant communities throughout 2022. The public art events, The Red Strings and Windows to the Soul, will be on view at Bowne Playground (Queens NY), Columbus Park (Manhattan NY), and Maple Playground in Flushing Chinatown respectively.

Maple Playground, Queens NY

Windows to the Soul

Windows to the Soul is a public art project participating in 2022 Shared Dialogue, Shared Space spring program, “a series of one-day interactive art initiatives presented for free in NYC Parks connecting immigrant communities and underserved ethnic enclaves to visual arts and culture through language access and participatory art activities,” according to the event organizer Korea Art Forum. A virtual artist talk and preview of the events co-presented by Korea Art Forum & Franklin Furnace is currently viewable here. 

Windows to the Soul was presented at Maple Playground in Flushing Chinatown, NY on May 14, 12-4PM

The artists will challenge dominant worldviews while referencing life in Flushing and the immigrant experience.

About this event

Shared Dialogue, Shared Space: Building Together, curated by Heng-Gil Han, featuring artists Cody Herrmann, David Younghwan Lee, Lily & Honglei, and Eunhae Park, broadens channels of communication between the contemporary art world and immigrant communities in New York City, advancing the artists’ creative endeavors of engaging the public and expanding public access to the artists’ creative work.

Artists’ creative activities include augmented reality experienced on participants’ smart phones, drawing workshops, participatory sculpture, and printed comics, all of which address immigrant experiences, competition and contradictions, exploitation of others and natural resources, and racial and social injustices subjugating people of color.

Events will take place at the Kissena Boulevard entrance of Maple Playground, between Maple Avenue and Franklin Avenue on Kissena Boulevard.

Korea Art Forum

“The work combines several colorful banners with augmented reality on mobile phones. The project will be presented at Maple Playground in Flushing Chinatown and is intended to bring healing to the Asian immigrant community. We’ll encourage people in the park to scan the banners with their smartphones. Through an augmented reality app, audiences can see the banners come to life through animated short films. We created these animations over three years. Both the banner and animation design have been inspired by East Asian folk arts, folktales, and opera performances, which may easily make connections with the audience at Maple Playground.

“We feel a deep personal connection with Flushing because our family members and many friends live here. Flushing has been serving so many Asian immigrants as a cultural & commercial center – it’s indeed our own neighborhood. But it has been hit particularly hard by the pandemic, for example, on Main Street and Kissena Blvd, you can see so many small businesses permanently closed. Meanwhile, many residents here have been living in isolation and fear due to the current violence against Asian Americans. Maple Playground is the place many Asian immigrants find solace by gathering on a daily basis to have a chat with friends, play cards and chess – it’s a place with a strong sense of community. For this reason, we think it’s a great public space to present our work reflecting Asian American cultural identity and immigrant experience. 

Lily & Honglei

Since 2020, Shared Dialogue, Shared Space has broadened channels of communication between the contemporary art world and immigrant communities in New York City. Focused on the expansion of public access to art, the project fosters audience discourse, exploring a wide range of subject matters and the multidimensional role of art in the processes of cultural production and social change. SDSS activities are offered to populations with limited English proficiency (LEP) free of charge with translation services in English, Chinese, Korean, and Spanish at local parks embedded in the community.

For this event, we are joined by artists Alicia Grullon, Ana Paula Cordeiro, Arantxa Araujo, Cody Herrmann, David Yonghwan Lee, Eunhae Park, Gina Goico, Jeanne F. Jalandoni, Lily & Honglei, LuLu LoLo, Priscilla Marrero, Rosamond S. King, and Stephanie Alvarado; and by curators Jennifer McGregor, Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo and Heng-Gil Han.

Korea art forum

Bowne Playground, Queens NY & Columbus Park, Manhattan NY

The Red String

The Red String is a site-specific installation designed for multiple public parks in Asian American neighborhoods, including Flushing in Queens and Chinatown in Manhattan. The goal of the public art project is to bring healing to the communities that have been devastated by the pandemic both economically and emotionally. 

Since the Covid-19 pandemic began in 2020, the AAPI community has fallen victim to elevated racial bias and violent physical attacks in New York City and nationwide. Living in isolation and fear, many Asian Americans and immigrants have been seeking solace by congregating with peers in neighborhood public parks where they play cards, mahjong, do babysitting, or simply have a chat. The Chinatown public parks, such as Bowne Playground in Queens and Columbus Park in Manhattan, are spaces in which Asian immigrant residents try to build networks and bond, to find support for each other. We choose to launch The Red String project at these public spaces in order to generate more cultural dialogues and communications between the Asian enclaves and the broader American society, as well as bring art and cultural products that often evade these underserved immigrant communities. 

The installation will consist of both physical and digital components (F3) reflecting on East Asian cultural heritages and immigrant experiences. The installation’s physical elements include a series of large banners (F4) with printed patterns of red strings, also called Asian knots, symbolizing Unity & Love (F5). Designs of the banners generally reflect on cultural heritages, identity and daily life of Asian American. The banners will be installed along the fences in the park, in close proximity to the tables and benches where visitors gather on a daily basis. 

The Red String’s digital components include mobile phone augmented reality (AR) and short animations inspired by East Asian folktales and traditional opera performances. Scanning QR codes or using a mobile phone AR app, visitors in the parks can watch the banners come to life in animations, which are segments from our video artwork The Butterfly Lovers. Reinterpreting Asian folktales and traditional operas, The Butterfly Lovers visualizes spiritual struggle with a hyper commercial environment, psychological isolations and family separation that have been experienced by Asian immigrants. The video can be viewed in its entirety here: 

The Red String installations will be presented as an outdoor exhibition in Fall 2022. Please stay tuned about the public event announcement. 

The Red String is created by Lily Honglei Art Studio, supported and produced by More Art NYC.