Crosslines Comic

Bringing Communities Together!

Showcasing Art, Dance, Music, & Stories‌..

SUMMARY CrossLines: A Culture Lab on Intersectionality, hosted on May 28-29, 2016, was a pop-up cultural arts space offering a new vision of a 21st century museum.

Taking the form of a night market, and appearing in the historic Smithsonian Arts & Industries building in conjunction with the American Alliance of Museums Conference, CrossLines featured over 40 artists and scholars exploring intersections in today’s web of American identity. Telling stories of our distinct history of migration, wars, civil rights struggles and personal journeys, the Culture Lab layered concepts such as race, religion, gender, sexuality and disability to show the complexity of the American experience.

CrossLines was presented by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center (APAC) and made possible by the generous support of the Ford Foundation and the Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Latino Center.

HISTORY CrossLines grew out of APAC’s FY2016-2018 strategic plan, the central goal of which is rethinking the 21st century museum. The soul of a museum, we believe, is not in the building itself but what goes inside it—and what happens inside it, the experiences of engagement and learning. Through first-hand experience, scholarly research, and community engagement, we realize that Asian Pacific America is not a community in isolation but one that lives in complex intersection, always forming and reforming through alliances, coalitions and even conflicts with other communities. Hence a great 21st century museum must engage communities and audiences in surprising and innovating ways, and transcend boundaries and barriers. APAC’s “blueprint” is to launch, in place of traditional exhibitions, a series of Culture Labs that transform public space and create new forms of visitor and community interaction. CrossLines was the first such Culture Lab, a pilot prototype of this new museum model.

GOALS Foster our commitment to upgrade and include research and collections activities with regard to Asian Pacific American communities and other communities of color with whom they intersect, such as Latino, African American, Native American, and Arab American, in acknowledgement and celebration of the interaction of these diverse ethnic and regional cultures in the United States.

Diffuse knowledge about Asian Pacific American, Latin American, African American, Native American, Arab American, and other communities of color.

Catalyze the production of new art exploring intersections between communities of color and across various other categories of identity and culture.

Fulfill our commitment to engaging local Washington, DC communities, particularly historically underserved communities of color.

Showcase local Washington, DC art, history, and culture to national audiences; Tell the full American story by advancing an intersectional approach to the study of culture.

Cultivate new audiences by building interactive, participatory spaces.

Develop and test a new model of a museum for the 21st century, one with national reach and collaborative design and execution, one that empowers communities.

Position the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center to have a leading role in studying the cultural fabric of tomorrow.

Over The Memorial Day Weekend On May 28th-29th, 2016. The Crosslines Culture Lab on Intersectionality at the Smithsonian Arts & Industries Building Hosted Over 11,600 People‌

Adrianne Russell @adriannerussell #CrossLines was a soul-stirring, consciousnessraising, HAPPENING. It’s what museums can do when fear steps aside #museumsrespondtoferguson

1.5 Million Followers

LaTanya S. Autry @artstuffmatters While some museum leaders still can’t grasp intersectionality & privilege, the #CrossLines Culture Lab offered many thoughtful exchanges.

Shannon Crowner @SC_TheHistorian @DRZZL congrats on the success of #crosslines!

The future of museums are in our hands and you’re setting the bar high!

Sophie Lieberman @Drsophie7 Brilliant museum takeover @Smithsonian artists/communities/consciousness raising #Crosslines

Nida A @NAicha11 Those in #DC check out #crosslines exhibit @SmithsonianAPA. Powerful work about identity, perceptions & stereotypes!

Tiffany Wang

Mary Tablante

@tiff_wang

@marytablante

Visually stunning, powerful piece at #Crosslines, exploring identity and voice. @SmithsonianAPA @aCreativeDC

Jennifer Wu @EyeCan365 Cloaked in deep personal multi-subject conversation for 2hrs with total strangers I now call friends #crosslines!

Tony K. Choi @tonykchoi It was so awesome seeing my DC #AAPI community turn out for @sonsandbros + #Crosslines. Thank you so much for a wonderful weekend. #APAHM

Stunning art, conversations & cultural experiences over at #CrossLines

schelldoom @alexschelldorf normal tweet: #CrossLines was unbelievable, if you can make it to the A&I building before 9, please go!

Christopher Kang @ChrisNCAPA This Memorial Day weekend, I taught my daughter the true meaning of patriotism. #CrossLines

During a Memorial Day weekend in our nation’s capital, among the several museums and activities simultaneously occurring on the National Mall, droves of people came into the Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building, and confronted were with numerous critiques and commentary on politics, patriotism, racism, colonialism… The Smithsonian could have opted for one singular American story but it chose to tell many, and that’s a true American story. We often get caught up in who is not coming into our museum in the sense of statistics, but what would the museum look like if we were to consider those who are coming as bringing texture and richness to the stories we already tell? When we set ourselves up for closed minds, we close ourselves to the possibility of greater inclusionary practices. The name of the event, “CrossLines”, is both what we need to do and the directions in which we should follow our work. I often think of art museums as having the flexibility to be nomadic, but what if our historical and cultural institutions were too? What could our pasts tell us that we hadn’t given attention to before? What cultural practices have we overlooked? Museums are only as empowered by the stories they can tell. Those are our stories.

“At CrossLines, I saw my identity as a Black & Persian/SWANA woman not only be acknowledged but included and celebrated. I witnessed the telling of true stories of immigration, pain, love, resilience, and joy through every piece. One installation that stood out to me the most was one of Tracy Keza entitled, “Hijabs & Hoodies” which was a photo installation, but also an interactive studio that explored the stereotypes of Black and Muslim people in America.”

“First, risk and experimentation. The Smithsonian is big, big! And somehow the folks at the Asia Pacific Center persuaded the powers-that-be to take a risk on a project that had a relatively quick turnaround, involved loads of collaborators, in an iconic building, and had challenging content. Amazing. So those of you who work in institutions where someone say that you’re either too big or too small to experiment? Use this as a convincing argument.”

“The pop-up exhibition did not use art to make a case for theory, but instead used the theory of intersectionality as a point of aesthetic departure, to demonstrate that in our clothing, our foods, our poetry, and songs there’s a way in which our small, individual struggles repeat. Our great and compelling and even everyday experiences are part of the weft and warp of the social fabric, so we are not nearly as singular and individuated as we are sometimes led to believe.”

“Adriel Luis and Lawrence-Minh Davis co-curated “Crosslines” with a specific idea in mind—to understand that identities exist and emerge in complex, multi-layered and fluid ways, distinct from traditional notions of diversity, which Luis asserts often conforms to quotas and tokenization.

Luis explains further, “While diversity attempts to satisfy through blanket inclusion, intersectionality understands that inclusion can never be comprehensive, so instead seeks nuances and overlaps among identities to demonstrate an expansive scope.” In organizing “Crosslines,” Luis and Davis afford us an opportunity, albeit brief, to understand how our commonalities, distinctions and interplay surface through the experiences of diaspora, gender and sexuality, colonial histories, gentrification and media representation. In a society that continues to distinguish and act upon embedded and often distorted notions of race and ethnicity, the artists in “Crosslines” propel us toward a deeper understanding of the greater human experience. We would do well to open ourselves to continue an exploration that began well over 500 years ago.”

Fresh Original Art…

Multicultural Innovations…

Awesome Interactions!

Innovative Curation Methods‌

Cultural Performances

Old & New Friends Convening At Crosslines Cultural Lab‌

Artist Collaborations & Interactions!

Interactive Experiences‌

Bringing Community F2F!‌

Educational Experiences

Breaking Stereotypes…

Communities of Engagement…