41 Ross Artist-in-Residence Program
The Chinese Culture Center (CCC) proudly presents 41 Ross Artist-in-Residence, an exchange platform for emerging API artists to develop work and expand on community-based practices located in SF’s Chinatown. Headquartered at 41 Ross, the Artist-in-Residence program builds upon CCC’s unique decade-long history in providing a platform for the artists’ experimental, conceptual, and research-based practices in an environment that strikes the balance between foregrounding artistic exploration, working within a cultural community, and promoting exchange amongst wider audiences.
Artists are invited to develop, produce, and present projects in Chinatown while supporting the social and economic recovery in the neighborhood; each artist will also receive mentorship from a CCC alumni artist. The first season of the program will feature artists working in futurist and speculative thinking, feminist discourse, and communal practices.
March 1st - May 31st
"Leymusoom Sarangbang" x Heesoo Kwon | 六毋神 x 權希樹
June 15 - September 15
For public programs, behind-the-scenes, and more:
June 15 - September 15
Connie Zheng | 鄭韞欣
Working with the space in "real-time" through seasonal changes and festivities, Connie will play with the temporal affect of the community and its cultural practices. She envisions the programs in the form of communal art & culture making which includes but not limited to experimental video screening & community food pairing, living neighborhood art map, special Autumn Moon Festival collaboration, etc.
“At 41 Ross, I hope to learn how to become a more effective advocate for the Chinatown community — and to deepen my creative practice by facilitating aesthetically and conceptually rich engagements that can also support local residents in material ways. When I used to live in San Francisco, I lived on the edge of Chinatown for five of those years, and walked through the neighborhood almost every day. I'm excited to form deeper connections with a vital community and place that have reminded me of home and family, and which have helped to lay the foundation for diasporic AAPI communities on the local, state and national level.” - Connie Zheng
On view: Connie Zheng: Table to Farm
July 30 - September 15
Thursday - Saturday, 11 - 4 pm
41 Ross
Programs
Connie Zheng: Table to Farm - Soft Opening | 鄭韞欣: 從餐桌到農場
July 28th - September 15th
Thursday - Saturday 11-4pm
41 Ross
As part of Connie’s residency at 41 Ross, she will be developing public programs and an exhibition that aim to engage visitors in critically (re)considering "farm to table" pathways through the lens of San Francisco Chinatown and a diasporic Asian perspective. In the newly transformed space, the artist presents various works such as a wall-sized map tracing Asian farmworker history in California, a 'reading room' of literary works centered around diverse conceptualizations of "food" and eating, maps of Chinatown food businesses made in tandem with tourists and local residents alike, and a community pantry, among other works that will evolve over the course of the residency.
“It's my hope that these prototypes will encourage viewers to form connections of their own between local and global food cultures, agriculture, California labor history, mapping practices, and the relationship between films and food, while simultaneously supporting the Chinatown community in material ways and learning about its crucial role in American culinary history.” - Connie Zheng
Stay tuned for more public programming!
About Connie Zheng:
Connie Zheng is a Chinese-born artist, writer and filmmaker based out of xučyun / Oakland, California. Projects such as large-scale maps, speculative seed exchanges, seed-making workshops, and experimental films are strategies for navigating diasporic memory, the continued weight of history and the possibilities for collective imagining amidst ongoing and future ecological transformations. Her work pays particular attention to participatory scenarios and speculative fictions involving interactions between landscapes, humans and more-than-human worlds. Zheng has exhibited work nationally and internationally, through venues such as the Contemporary Jewish Museum, the Asian Art Museum, Singapore Art Week, and the IMPAKT Festival in the Netherlands. She has received fellowships and residencies from the Headlands Center for the Arts, the Oak Spring Garden Foundation, and the Minnesota Street Project Foundation, among others, and was the inaugural recipient of the Joint Space Award. She recently published a chapter in the Routledge Companion to Contemporary Art, Visual Culture, and Climate Change, and her work is held in the collections of the Kadist Foundation and the David Rumsey Map Center at Stanford University. She graduated with BAs in Economics and English from Brown University, an MFA in Art Practice from the University of California — Berkeley, and is currently a PhD student in Visual Studies at the University of California — Santa Cruz.
March 1st - May 31st
"Leymusoom Sarangbang" x Heesoo Kwon | 六毋神 x 權希樹
"Leymusoom Sarangbang" is a technology and social practice project that transforms 41 Ross into a spiritual space and a “pop-up park” to explore womxn/queer liberation. The artist performs communal rituals in parallel with a digital utopia. The residency program expands on her continued work exploring her personal history and rapidly changing cultural landscape with emerging technologies. Heesoo collaborated with Chinatown Community Development Center (CCDC) Youths, neighboring businesses, and cultural groups.
“As the first 41 Ross artist in residence, I feel so honored and so grateful for all the help and support along the way. I felt like I’m the first one ever writing history in a book, to start the new fun journey in Ross alley. My residency here really expanded my practice. I've never had such a deep connection and understanding of a neighborhood in the Bay area before until this opportunity. The immigration stories from the neighbors reminded me of my ancestors too, it inspired me to rethink my practice. For me, Chinatown is the neighborhood that makes me feel like home.“ - Heesoo Kwon
Programs:
April 15: Leymusoom SarangBang Grand Opening (레이무숨 사랑방 개장 행사 // 六毋神之舍廊房慶典)
May 6 & May 7: Leymusoom Tattoo Ritual
May 26 & May 27: SF 아리랑 (SF Arirang)
About Heesoo Kwon:
Heesoo Kwon is a visual artist and anthropologist from South Korea currently based in the Bay Area, California. In 2017, Kwon initiated an autobiographical feminist religion Leymusoom, as an ever-evolving exploration of her family histories and feminist liberation. Kwon received her Masters of Fine Art from UC Berkeley in 2019. Her work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Et Al and Studio 2W, San Francisco; Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, Berkeley; and CICA Museum and Visual Space Gunmulsai, South Korea. She has participated in group exhibitions at the CICA Museum; BAMPFA, Berkeley; 47 Canal, New York; Chinese Culture Center, San Francisco; Slash Gallery, San Francisco; and Site Gallery, Sheffield, UK, among others. In 2012 Kwon received the Female Inventor of the Year Award from the Korean Intellectual Property Office. Her other accolades include the Young Korean Artist Award from the CICA Museum, a finalist in the 20th Seoul International ALT Cinema & Media Festival, a finalist of the Sheffield DocFest Arts Programme, the Roselyn Schneider Eisner Prize for Photos and Art Practice from UC Berkeley, a finalist of the Queer|Art|Prize of recent works in 2021.
About Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco
Chinese Culture Center (CCC) is a non-profit arts organization established in 1965. CCC elevates underserved communities and gives voice to equality through education and contemporary art. Rooted in San Francisco’s Chinatown, CCC is a loud and creative voice to uplift social and economical transformation. We provide a safe environment for artists who champion activism, resiliency, and healthy communities. In doing so, we shift dominant narratives, empower change, and reimagine our futures.
About 41 Ross
Situated in historic Ross Alley in San Francisco Chinatown, 41 Ross launched in 2014 as a collaboration between the Chinatown Community Development Center and the Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco. Functioning as an art gallery, interactive creative studio, and community resource space, 41 Ross brings together local residents, neighbors, and visitors to engage in art and culture-making activities. Through its cultural programming, 41 Ross aims to promote dialogue, appreciation, and creative engagement around the local culture practice by everyday people in Chinatown.
Artistic programming at 41 Ross is proudly supported by
Additional support:
#StartSmall, Fleishhacker Foundation, San Francisco Foundation
San Francisco Grants for the Arts, California Arts Council, Zellerbach Family Foundation, Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, CCC Contemporaries
.jpg)
%20Connie%20Zheng.png)
%20Community%20Challenge%20Grants%20logo.png)