YEAR OF THE TIGER in partnership with Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy
“Boston Chinatown, like so many other North American Chinatowns, is a vibrant community, founded within a bitter history of exclusion. I’m incredibly excited to have the honor of creating a new public artwork for Mary Soo Hoo Park, in the heart of Boston Chinatown. My hope is that YEAR OF THE TIGER, embodying the spirit of the tiger, this year’s Chinese zodiac animal, can activate the park as a vibrant community gathering hub.
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February 10, 2022 – Boston, MA – The Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy and Pao Arts Center today announced the commission and upcoming 2022 installation of new public artwork, YEAR OF THE TIGER, by New York City Chinatown-based artist Cheryl Wing-Zi Wong. Throughout the summer, this artwork will be activated through the associated Year of the Tiger Performance Series as part of this new public art collaboration.
YEAR OF THE TIGER
Through the Conservancy, Cheryl Wing-Zi Wong has been commissioned to create an artwork celebrating the Year of the Tiger, as part of an annual series honoring the Chinese Zodiac on The Greenway. Throughout her practice, artist and architect Cheryl Wing-Zi Wong creates transformative spaces and explores how we can share space together. Her upcoming artwork, YEAR OF THE TIGER, is a community pavilion and a site-specific public artwork that creates a new, intergenerational hub to gather outdoors, perform, or engage in public programs.
“These projects will provide space for gathering and celebration for the vibrant, intergenerational communities of Chinatown,” said Sheila Novak, Associate Curator of Public Art for the Greenway Conservancy. “We are looking forward to supporting projects which directly engage the Chinatown community’s vision for engaging public art as a central strategy for creative placekeeping and for centering community power.”
YEAR OF THE TIGER PERFORMANCE SERIES
Conceptually building on the bold, confident, and generous characteristics of the Tiger, different line-ups of Boston-based artists will activate the pavilion through a monthly series of music, theater, and spoken word performances. The Year of the Tiger Performance Series honors the strength of the community of performing artists in Boston while also cherishing the visions of the Chinatown community.
“We are thrilled to partner with the Greenway Conservancy to bring innovative new public art to Chinatown. In presenting these performances and stories outdoors, we hope to bring opportunities for visitors both from within and outside of the neighborhood to connect and share with each other,” shared Cynthia Woo, Director at Pao Arts Center. “Interactions and connections are so vital to everyone’s health and well-being and the YEAR OF THE TIGER stage will help foster these interactions.”
This performance series builds on Pao Arts Center’s current exhibition series, New Narratives curated by Leslie Condon, Pao Arts Center Program Manager as well as an interdisciplinary artist and independent curator from Greater Boston.
“Over the past two years, it has been awe-inspiring to witness how our Asian, Asian American, and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities continue to endure and thrive amid innumerable challenges. At this moment, it is even more crucial that we disrupt outdated notions of our individual and collective identities through more generative modes of expression,” said Leslie Condon. “I am thrilled to bring New Narratives to The Greenway at Mary Soo Hoo Park and cannot wait to highlight the many talented Boston-area AAPI artists, creatives, and performers who are examining their own complex identities through their artwork.”
Learn more about this project with a virtual studio visit on March 3, 6 - 7pm hosted by the Greenway Conservancy featuring: Cheryl Wing-Zi Wong, Artist, Sheila Novak, Associate Curator, Greenway Conservancy, Cynthia Woo, Director, Pao Arts Center