When Pao Arts Center opened just five years ago, as a visionary collaboration between Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center (BCNC) and Bunker Hill Community College (BHCC), we could not have imagined the depth of the connections we would build within the Greater Boston creative community. Within the past five years, we’ve welcomed over 500 artists and performers from all over the world, hosted over 500 events, and welcomed over 25,000 audience members and neighborhood residents to the Center. We’ve seen artwork and performances that celebrate AAPI cultural heritage, as well as innovative creative experimentation that will shape the future of culture.

Our 5,000 square feet space has been home to a wide variety creative expressions, from Cantonese opera, Taiko, Bharata Natyam dance, and site-specific paintings to multi-media performances, musical showcases, virtual discussions, and multilingual theater. We’ve also activated outdoor spaces in Chinatown for our Experience Chinatown festival, our outdoor summer performance series, VISIONS/VOICES, in collaboration with The Rose Kennedy Greenway, and our unique placekeeping artist residency, ResLab, in collaboration with the Asian Community Development Corporation (ACDC).

The Pao Arts Center team, past and present, share some of their favorite memories from the past five years:

Pao Arts Center’s programs continue to serve the Chinatown community and the diverse, creative power of the New England AAPI diaspora. Our mission to make arts, culture, and education programs accessible, especially for the historically underserved AAPI community, remains a priority embedded in every event, performance, exhibition, and class. In the past five years, we’ve witnessed how truly essential the arts have been in improving mental, physical, and social well-being. We’ve seen our programs increase the happiness and sense of belonging among a wide spectrum of audiences, including: seniors looking for opportunities to perform and stay active, young students seeking to understand their cultural identity, artists eager to make impactful community-centered art, and visitors curious about under-represented histories and stories.

Pao Arts Center’s vision for the next five years is to continue expanding our creative community, create even more opportunities for artists and audience members to exercise their creative agency, and become a national model for bridging AAPI cultural history, artistic innovation, and social services. Help us make that vision a reality by giving to our 5th Anniversary Campaign, Bridging Creative Connections.

Thank you to all of our artists, event attendees, staff, community partners, and donors for making the past five years possible!