Korean American Artist Collective (KAAC)

About the Organization:

The Korean American Artist Collective (KAAC) is a group of artists dedicated to supporting, building, and amplifying works that are politically, socially, and culturally engaged, and rooted in the Korean American experience. We do this by creating spaces of connection, collaborating, exhibiting, and distributing works in all media. Our work lies at the intersection of Korean American identity, community, and justice.

The Issue:

Although the U.S. Census Bureau indicates that the Asian American population has been one of the fastest-growing racial or ethnic groups in the US, Asian Americans make up a fraction of what we see in the art world. Less than 9% of the works in the collections of all major US museums belong to Asian artists. This lack of representation directly translates to and perpetuates the cycle of limited exposure, access to resources, institutional support, and professional development opportunities. As a result, AAPI artists face significant challenges in developing and fully pursuing their art practices and accessing the support needed to thrive. This leads to a scarcity mindset among the AAPI artist community that fosters competition, distrust, and insularity rather than one of community, growth, and solidarity.

This lack of AAPI representation not only limits opportunities for artists, but also perpetuates a eurocentric notion of aesthetics and culture as disseminated and canonized in institutions like museums, libraries, and universities. We see a real need for more AAPI representation in institutional art spaces, as well as more spaces that allow for the transmission and sharing of culturally specific art forms, art histories, and aesthetics. Artists need spaces to explore and preserve their cultural heritage, to challenge the status quo, and to decolonize art institutions.

Furthermore, the model minority myth invisibilizes the diverse experience of Korean Americans and turns it into a single narrative, which not only pits minority groups against each other but does real harm to the most marginalized among us who do not fit the stereotype and therefore benefit from its effects. The myth perpetuates the notion that artists who are Korean American do not need support, connection, or care, and erases the many real experiences among Korean Americans with diverse intersectional identities. There are very few spaces where Korean/AAPI artists can explore the full breadth and range of their identity as diasporic people and as artists, where they can fully express their diversity of experiences, perspectives, art forms and practices, aesthetics, gender identities, immigration stories, family and racial histories, socio-economic situations, body types, and so on.

The Solution:

To achieve our mission, we create spaces of connection, foster collaborations, curate exhibitions, and distribute works across all forms of media. Through these initiatives, we establish platforms for artists to be seen, heard, and celebrated, bridging the gap between art, Korean American identity, community, and justice. We do this work in the following ways:

Resource Sharing and Education: We organize and host free online and in-person art workshops for the public, facilitated by community artists and members. Our Instagram account connects and highlights Korean American artists, amplifies art events, and shares relevant resources with our audience.
Individual and Collaborative Projects: We facilitate an Artist Project Grant program to provide unrestricted microgrants for Korean American artists to support new and in-progress research and creative projects. We organize and produce collaborative projects, both within the collective and in collaboration with outside members and groups, which allow us to explore themes based on our shared Korean heritage, and seek ways to build solidarity both within our community and with other groups. This year, we are organizing our first all-member group exhibit – a show centered on the Korean concept of “han,” in collaboration with the AAPI organization Asian American Justice and Innovation Lab (AAJIL). We are planning another collaborative exhibit with a Filipino artist collective in 2024, and hope to organize more projects with other artist and/or community groups.
Community Building and Networking: KAAC provides spaces of connection via events like panels, artist salons, artist talks, and other networking opportunities. We facilitate an active Discord group that fosters dialogue, connection, resource sharing, and informal mentoring among our members. We host an online storefront and participate in art fairs; these platforms provide professional development experience, exposure, income opportunities, and spaces to connect with the public.
Mutual Aid: We organize fundraisers in solidarity with movements and communities such as Black Lives Matter, voting rights, and AAPI organizations working with marginalized groups. We maintain an internal community care fund for collective members who need emergency support or small amounts of funding, to aid in their practice and overall well-being.

Our Programs Include:

Resource Sharing and Education: We organize and host free online and in-person art workshops for the public, facilitated by community artists and members. Our Instagram account connects and highlights Korean American artists, amplifies art events, and shares relevant resources with our audience.
Individual and Collaborative Projects: We facilitate an Artist Project Grant program to provide unrestricted microgrants for Korean American artists to support new and in-progress research and creative projects. We organize and produce collaborative projects, both within the collective and in collaboration with outside members and groups, which allow us to explore themes based on our shared Korean heritage, and seek ways to build solidarity both within our community and with other groups. This year, we are organizing our first all-member group exhibit – a show centered on the Korean concept of “han,” in collaboration with the AAPI organization Asian American Justice and Innovation Lab (AAJIL). We are planning another collaborative exhibit with a Filipino artist collective in 2024, and hope to organize more projects with other artist and/or community groups.
Community Building and Networking: KAAC provides spaces of connection via events like panels, artist salons, artist talks, and other networking opportunities. We facilitate an active Discord group that fosters dialogue, connection, resource sharing, and informal mentoring among our members. We host an online storefront and participate in art fairs; these platforms provide professional development experience, exposure, income opportunities, and spaces to connect with the public.
Mutual Aid: We organize fundraisers in solidarity with movements and communities such as Black Lives Matter, voting rights, and AAPI organizations working with marginalized groups. We maintain an internal community care fund for collective members who need emergency support or small amounts of funding, to aid in their practice and overall well-being.

Manisha G. Bewtra, AICP

Planning, Mobility, and Development Advisor to Tucson Mayor Regina Romero

Manisha Bewtra, AICP (she/her) is Mayor Romero’s Planning, Mobility, and Development Advisor. In this role, she leverages her passion for planning for thriving, healthy, and inclusive communities with her love for policy-making and politics as the Mayor’s liaison on transportation and land use issues. Manisha is an experienced public process facilitator and project manager and works collaboratively with the Mayor’s team and city departments to apply an equity lens to all city initiatives.
Manisha has built her career on bringing divergent perspectives together, facilitating conversations around change, and generating data-informed solutions that move communities forward. She is driven by public service and champions equitable policies and inclusive community engagement.
Prior to her current role, she worked at the Metropolitan Area Planning Council in Boston as a senior regional planner and the manager of the analytics team, at the Massachusetts Housing Partnership where she was a statewide technical assistance provider, as an adjunct city planning instructor for Master’s degree program courses at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and at Arizona State University, and in municipal government and nonprofit community development organizations in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Chandler, Arizona.
Manisha has served on various equity-focused organizations and committees and is a graduate of Emerge Massachusetts, the Initiative for Diversity in Civic Leadership, and the Massachusetts Commonwealth Seminar, three organizations dedicated to training underrepresented groups to influence public policy and to run for office. She has a Master of City Planning degree from the University of Pennsylvania, a BA in Economics and Art from The University of Iowa, and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners. She currently serves as a member at large for the American Planning Association Arizona Southern Section and is a member of the executive team for the Asian American and Political Islander Caucus for the Arizona Democratic Party.
Before moving to Tucson in the summer of 2020, she lived in the Boston area for twelve years. During her years in Melrose, Massachusetts, she served as a Human Rights Commissioner and subsequently as a City Councilor. When elected to the Melrose City Council, she became the first person of color ever to serve in elected office in Melrose. She grew up in Iowa and identifies as Desi/Indian-American. She, her husband, and her son felt welcomed and right at home in Tucson when they moved here – even in spite of a pandemic and searing summer heat.

Arnie Saiki

research, writer, program director

Broadly focusing on regional economic and geopolitical themes in the Asia and Pacific regions, Arnie Saiki is currently leading a working group on data, statistics and valuation in the Pacific. His book “Economic and Ecological Accounting: Towards Intemerate Values,” was published last year by the Pacific Conference of Churches, the Pacific Theological College and the University of the South Pacific.

Since the publication, this campaign has been introduced to the Ecological and Economic Justice program at the World Council of Churches and he is participating in a G8 Interfaith forum for the inclusion of Wellbeing indicators into our economic accounts.

While national statistics and ecological accounting normally fall under the purview of government, academic or international institutions, Arnie has been campaigning in democratizing our ecological data, seeking support for a proof-of-concept accounting program that would enable poor, impacted, and indigenous peoples to actively participate in how we account for our socio and economic biodiversity. Intemerate Accounting is an equation that helps to correct accounting disparities that have, to a large extent, excluded the Global South. Revising our accounting system can provide access and opportunities that cross wide campaign sectors, bringing hope, action and efficacy to reverse climate change, restore our ecological biodiversity, and redistribute global wealth more equitably.

Arnie has been actively promoting and working on global justice campaigns since 2007 when he received a “We the People” grant from the Hawai’i Council of the Humanities for his work on Hawai’i Statehood. He has organized conferences with Hawaiian national independence groups, managed the Save Rapanui campaign after the Chilean military forced a lockdown of Easter Islanders. Arnie spoke at the World Bank representing the Pacific Island Forum, and participated in discussions around regionalism in the Pacific. He was recently appointed the US-Pacific Diplomacy and Solidarity Mission for the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), and is on the management team of the Deep Seabed Mining Campaign.

In 2011, Arnie received the blessing from Dr. Kekuni Blaisdell to organize a counter-conference in Honolulu while APEC was there and coordinated the Moana Nui conferences, an international partnership between the International Forum on Globalization and Pua Mohala I Ka Po. For the last ten years he has been campaigning on issues around trade, development, ecological resources, indigenous issues and militarization in the Pacific.

His essays, “TPP at the End of the Line: a briefing on economic cooperation and capacity building” was published in American Quarterly by John Hopkins University Press, and “Manifesting the Liquid Continent,” was published by Yunnan National University, as part of the 1st International conference on Asia and Pacific Ethnology and Anthropology.