ANNUAL REPORT 2023 2024
ABOUT THE W.O.W. PROJECT
The W.O.W. Project is a women, queer, trans and youth-led community initiative using art and activism to grow our community’s capacities for selfdetermination and nurture NYC Chinatown’s creative culture in a time of rapid change.
OUR TEAM
Mei Lum Executive Director
Di Wang Deputy Director
Yuki Haraguchi Program Director
Carolyn Lau Operations Associate
Aishvarya Arora Development Associate
Bridget Li 2023 Youth Coordinator
Tiffany Wang Marketing & Communications Coordinator
Serena Yang 2023 Youth Coordinator
Vivian Yi 2023 Youth Coordinator
Juliet Philips CRNY Artist — Visual Artist
Denise Zhou CRNY Artist — Cultural Worker
Aurora Hom 2023 Summer Intern
Kaitlyn Lee 2023 Summer Intern
Singha Hon CRNY Artist — Illustrator
Lorraine Lum CRNY Artist — Patternmaker & Technical Designer
Joy Mao CRNY Artist — Fashion Designer & Textile Artist
Christina Li 2023 Summer Intern
Joy Freund Youth Advisory Board, 2023 RRR Teaching Artist & Summer Program Manager
Nisma Saadaoui 2023 Summer Program Manager
Emily Chow Bluck Board Member
Elizabeth Moy Board Member
Bonnie Chen Youth Advisory Board Member
Sophia Kschwendt 2024 Summer Program Coordinator
Jade Levine Board Member
Ja Bulsombut Youth Advisory Board Member
Coco Kitagawa 2024 Summer Program Coordinator
Emily Mock Board Member
Kristin Chang Youth Advisory Board Member
Christina Li (2023 Summer Intern): “Being at W.O.W. was transformative for me. I love that W.O.W. places so much trust in young people to lead, define, and shape programming. From this, I gained a sense of agency, which has helped me build confidence in the ideas I bring to the table... The most beautiful thing that’s come out of my time with W.O.W. is that I’ve not only learned and developed skills (such as in collaboration, adaptability, project management, etc), but I’ve also made new friends along the way and found community with them. To me, that feels very W.O.W.!”
Illustration by Singha Hon
OUR NUMBERS AND FUNDRAISING STRATEGIES
The W.O.W. Project’s fundraising strategy aligns with our Theory of Change (See page 10), emphasizing self-determination, youth leadership, and community care in our change-making efforts. By integrating substantial grant funding with grassroots campaigns, we ensure our work addresses community needs and maintains independence from shifting grantmaking priorities. Thus, we prioritize sustaining support from community members to uphold accountability and strengthen community-driven resource mobilization. This strategy ensures that W.O.W.’s resources are used effectively to achieve our mission while remaining deeply connected to the community’s needs.
In practice, this means we manage our resources thoughtfully and act purposefully in our fundraising efforts. For example, in 2024, we decided not to run an anniversary fundraising campaign because we met our FY24* fundraising goals through our Lunar New Year campaign. We, instead, encouraged community members to support related causes and offered free programs throughout our FY24 program year.
PEER TO PEER FUNDRAISING
$9,945.92 total, $160.42 average raised in 2022–2023
$26,715.63 total, $82.71 average raised in 2023–2024
Lunar New Year Fundraising: Anniversary Fundraising:
$21,860.68 total, $75.91 average raised in 2022–2023 In 2023–2024, we decided not to run an anniversary campaign.
RAFFLES
Raffles offer a more accessible way for our community to plug into our fundraising efforts with ticket sales beginning at $10.
A celebration of relationships past and future, every year’s raffle items were all collaborative experiences contributed by long-time W.O.W. staff and artists. Each experience created an opportunity for members of the W.O.W. community to get to know each other and get to know the artists and staff that make our work possible.
SLIDING SCALE TICKET EVENTS
Vital to our anniversary fundraising campaigns, our community programming has always been a way to create space for connection, share the essence of W.O.W.’s work from the year, and generate community support through sliding scale donation ticket sales.
2022–2023
$3442.50 raised
MUTUAL AID
2023–2024
We decided all of our events should be free.
Started in 2021, From Chinatown, With Love (FCWL), is a project that raises funds for long-time small businesses impacted by the pandemic. Coinciding with our Lunar New Year grassroots fundraising campaign, FCWL uses art to celebrate and build economic resilience for small businesses that make up the cultural fabric of our neighborhood. This project highlights the intersection of art, economic resiliency, and relationship building and epitomizes The W.O.W. Project’s mission of using art to strengthen community.
*W.O.W.’s fiscal year begins on July 1st each year, and our program year aligns with it. FY24 refers to the fiscal year from July 2023 to June 2024.
Image: Marion Aguas
FROM
CHINATOWN WITH LOVE, BY THE NUMBERS
TOTAL BUSINESSES SUPPORTED: 47
TOTAL MONEY RAISED: 86,375
TOTAL ARTISTS INVOLVED: 15
GRANT FUNDRAISING
Grant funding has increased to become about 97% of our income in FY23–24. To ensure we design our programs to respond to our community’s needs, rather than shifting funding priorities, we have prioritized general operations funding and program funding for existing programs.
Illustration by Singha Hon
2022-2023
2023-2024
2023 FOREWORD:
A YEAR OF TRANSFORMATIVE PAUSE AND RENEWAL
Committed to deep reflection, transformation, and mutual empowerment, The W.O.W. Project’s 7th year was marked by the decision to focus our time and energy internally. While examining our role in movement spaces, we reflected on the broader context of the past two years, shaped by the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic
THEORY OF CHANGE
During our annual team retreat in March 2023, we developed a working Theory of Change for W.O.W. that outlines our core organizational goals and how our day-to-day work functions in service of this vision:
At W.O.W., we envision a future that nurtures the self-determination and leadership of women, queer, and trans-Asian diasporic youth. When communities are displaced, and Chinatown shrinks, this future becomes impossible. We believe that collective artmaking—the process of making art with others—can function as both political practice and organizing strategy in fighting cultural displacement and securing this future. Guided by queer feminist understandings of power, embodiment, care, and social and cultural (re)production, arts and culture at W.O.W. become a tool for politicization and relationship building. Though our work is expansive—including residencies, youth programs, public events, and mutual aid—it is an expression of three core strategies and visions for community:
1. We use the arts as an organizing tool against cultural displacement to build a community that challenges and shapes narratives about displacement, art, and activism.
2. We cultivate the selfdetermination and leadership of queer and trans Asian diasporic youth to build a community that sustains movement lineage and shapes change through movement work.
3. We hold change with care to build a community that models, strives for, and sustains community ownership.
Illustration by Singha Hon
2023 PROGRAMS
RESIST RECYCLE REGENERATE
What is Resist Recycle Regenerate?
RRR (Resist Recycle Regenerate) is a youth-led arts and activism program that seeks to intersect art and activism through building femme and queer-centered leadership within the Chinatown community. The basis of the program’s art-making practice is formed from making paper out of recycled confetti collected during the annual Lunar New Year parade. RRR’s youth mentorship program promotes young women and gender queer youth as leaders who further inspire growth among their peers through artmaking.
Resist Recycle Regenerate’s Pause
Like our other programs, RRR took the year off to pause and focus on redefining our work. RRR alumni stewarded a plan to hone the program’s curriculum with an eye toward its future.
KEY LEARNINGS
alumni engagement is the life force of RRR and its leadership pipeline
reimagined onboarding process for leaders, emphasizing political education and adequate support for leadership growth
paper making is a formative tradition that grounds art as an embodied practice
Illustration by Juliet Phillips
ROOTWORK
The Rootwork workshop series was a central part of The W.O.W. Project’s year-long pause, which prioritized internal reflection and learning. W.O.W. team members, along with Hana Sun, collaboratively designed this political education series that brought together youth, artists, and staff in monthly gatherings over shared meals. Learning together allowed our team to build a collective understanding of the issues and systems of power that shape our cultural organizing work.
The guiding questions and topics of Rootwork included:
TOPIC 1 Settler Colonialism & Indigenous Solidarity
TOPIC 2 Anti-Gentrification
TOPIC 3 Queer Feminisms
TOPIC 4 Conflict Transformation
TOPIC 5 Non-Profit Industrial Complex
To document our learnings and share them beyond W.O.W., we created a Rootwork zine, to share team reflections and resources from our collective studies.
W.O.W. Team members engaging in discussion. Images: Mei Lum
2023 LUNAR NEW YEAR: YEAR OF THE WATER RABBIT
The 2023 W.O.W. The Crowd: Lunar New Year Fundraiser channeled the rabbit’s agile energy, rallying team captains and their networks to mobilize resources for our cultural organizing work. Drawing on Lunar New Year traditions, this campaign empowered W.O.W. community members to strengthen youth-led cultural organizing efforts in the neighborhood through peer-to-peer fundraising efforts. Due to a shifting political landscape, our usual fundraising methods for recruiting and activating teams faced challenges in 2023 resulting in a lower amount of funds raised. Learning from this, we started the 2024 captain recruitment early and launched the campaign with purposeful messages of renewing our commitment to a world where Chinatown is fueled and shaped by its people power.
FROM CHINATOWN, WITH LOVE—YEAR OF THE WATER RABBIT
“From Chinatown, With Love—Year of the Rabbit” was a collaborative project between The W.O.W. Project and Abrons Arts Center, celebrating the Lunar New Year of 2023. Drawing on the cultural significance of the rabbit, this project paid homage to Chinatown’s cultural vibrancy and heritage by engaging five local businesses and five socially-engaged artists in the design and creation of 100 ceramic Lunar New Year charms.
FCWL 2023 Procession of lion dancers blessing a business. Image: Marion Aguas
The charm design and making process was led by W.O.W.’s Creatives Rebuild New York (CRNY) cohort of artists. Drawing from their own respective artistic practices—illustration, textile design, story telling, and ceramics—they led a series of community workshops inspired by different components of the charm’s design, including ceramic bead-making and Chinese knot-tying. The completed charms were distributed to participating businesses at the start of the Lunar New Year as a part of a fundraising effort, helping to encourage traffic to each business and bring blessings for the year to come.
Kyo Pang, Owner of Kopitiam.
Images: Marion Aguas
Fernando Ponce, Owner of Spongies Cafe.
Mr. and Mrs. Zhou, Owners of EWA Trading Co.
On January 28, 2023 at Abrons Arts Center, W.O.W. and the CRNY artists held a public workshop inspired by their Lunar New Year charm design. Adults and children were invited to contribute new year wishes, transforming recycled materials into a large-scale community charm, and creating their own wearable rabbit-themed headdresses to hop into the new year.
Here is a list of the small businesses we collaborated with in 2023:
Illustrations by Singha Hon
“It was inspiring and energizing to come together to both learn and teach each other — a true community effort!” — Joy Mao
W.O.W. CRNY Artists and Program Team from Abrons workshop.
Lion dancers and workshop participants at Abrons Art Center. Images: Marion Aguas
Zine/One Page Calendar by Singha Hon
NAMING THE LOST:
REVERBERATIONS OF GRIEF
In partnership with Naming the Lost and queer Asian American community organization Q-Wave, CRNY artists Denise Zhou and Lorraine Lum collaborated to craft a memorial that honored the experiences and losses endured by our community since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. This memorial intertwined found objects and personal artifacts into a community-created wind chime that melded sound and sculpture, fostering a sanctuary for remembrance and grieving. Through interactive workshops, community members were invited to contemplate the pandemic’s far-reaching impact, the systemic flaws that exacerbated profound loss, and the dearth of collective mourning over the past three years. This wind chime was first activated at the Greenwood Cemetery fence in May, before returning to Chinatown in June for W.O.W.’s anniversary celebration.
W.O.W. Team members smiling in front of the memorial wind chime installed at Greenwood Cemetery. Image: Marion Aguas
The W.O.W. Project’s invitation to collaborate on a memorial for the Naming the Lost project gave our members a chance to slow down, reflect, and create. We are grateful for the opportunity to channel our collective community grief into a beautiful artifact.
— Christine Liu,
Q-Wave
CELEBRATING W.O.W.’S
7TH ANNIVERSARY
Our 2023 anniversary’s theme, “Trusting Our Tides,” used the guiding metaphor of high and low tides to honor the cyclical nature of our cultural organizing work. Harnessing the power of low tide, we reflected on what it means to both receive and offer support to Chinatown’s community. Propelled by the momentum of high tide, we celebrated the importance of knowledge exchange in nurturing relationships. This series celebrated the strength of community united by a shared purpose and our commitment to empowerment in the face of change.
Illustration by Singha Hon
THE SUN IN OUR SAILS
May 27, 2023 at Columbus Park
CRNY artists Singha Hon, Joy Mao, Lorraine Lum, and Juliet Phillips led a cyanotype printing workshop in Columbus Park where participants created personalized bandanas that used symbols to represent their unique connections to Chinatown. Cyanotype, a printing technique powered by sunlight, transformed simple cotton fabric and household objects into canvases for selfexpression. At the end of the workshop, participants were invited to offer and create objects to place in a larger collective tapestry. Illustration by Singha Hon
BRAVING OUR CURRENTS: RITUALS FOR CHANGE
June 3, 2023 at Wing On Wo
Healer, poet, and cultural organizer River 瑩瑩 Dandelion led participants in ceremony, somatic practice, and reflection to explore building trust through change. Community members collectively created rituals and a group altar that harnessed the symbolic energies of fire, water, earth, and air.
Participants in ceremony. Images: Marion Aguas
POLITICAL EDUCATION IN ACTION:
TURNING THE TIDES OF ANTI-GENTRIFICATION WORK
June 10, 2023 at Bluestockings Cooperative
W.O.W. hosted a panel discussion at Bluestockings with team members from CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities (Chinatown) and Mexicanos Unidos (Sunset Park) to explore diverse approaches to implementing political education within our communities.
“After a joyful and experimental year of Rootwork, which we designed month by month, it was such a gift to connect with our wider community in New York to discuss the stakes of political education and the ways it lives in different contexts. We wanted to create a space that would showcase and honor the work of each group, while also allowing the brilliant organizers to bring their best ideas to the table, pushing us all to think about political education more deeply. The audience was incredibly attentive, asked thoughtful questions, and took home copies of the Rootwork zine. It was such a special way to culminate Rootwork.” —Aishvarya Arora
Images: Marion Aguas
Altar from Braving Our Currents.
Catrina, Alina, Denise, and Aishvarya on a panel.
TRUSTING OUR TIDES
CELEBRATING THE W.O.W. PROJECT’S 7TH YEAR ANNIVERSARY
June 23, 2023 at Downtown Community Television Center
Our anniversary celebration concluded the anniversary series. Hosted at DCTV, the event offered a dynamic canvas for artists, musicians, and healers to celebrate with us. Their offerings included:
• MC, Tuxedo Masc: a drag king show that reimagined a traditional Cantonese kung-fu song, challenging masculinity and other conventions to fuse queer and Cantonese cultural traditions.
• yuniya eddy kwon: an interactive healing ritual that centered the wind chime created at our “Naming the Lost” workshop.
• Daria Garina: a meditation with guzheng accompaniment by Clae Lu.
• Aishvarya Arora and Serena Yang: poetry speaking to the complexities of being Asian American, immigrants, queer, activists, and artists in the US.
• W.O.W. team members: A performance of new play “High Tide.”This narrative transported the Moon Goddess Chang’E to a post-apocalyptic, partly submerged Manhattan Chinatown where she is rescued by a young person and theirintergenerational Chinatown community. Through this imaginative narrative, we delved into themes of friendship, intergenerational unity, climate change, belonging, and the potential for transformation.
Tuxedo Masc performing a drag king routine.
Serena Yang reading poetry. Images: Marion Aguas
“It was so amazing to witness the W.O.W. community come together for our anniversary celebration. I’m so grateful for the electric energy the performers brought, their brilliance offered us a way for us to collectively ground our bodies with play and imagination. Trusting Our Tides definitely ushered in W.O.W.’s eighth year with energy and a sense of possibility.” — Yuki Haraguchi
Community members interacting with our “Naming the Lost” wind chime.
yuniya eddy kwon playing violin during their ritual. Images: Marion Aguas
CLOSING THE 7TH YEAR OF W.O.W.
This year stands as a testament to the profound impact of care, resilience, and purpose-driven action. Through our “Trusting Our Tides” fundraiser accompanying the program series, 287 individuals contributed to support W.O.W., collectively donating $21,860 to power W.O.W.’s 8th year of organizing. We were honored to carry this energy, heart, and wealth of resources into our 8th year.
Community members, family, and friends enjoying the 7th Year Anniversary.
W.O.W. Program Team, CRNY Artists, and performing artists smiling. Images: Marion Aguas
2024 PROGRAMS
2024 FOREWORD: REEMERGENCE
W.O.W. emerged from our internal 7th year ready to focus on engaging deeply with our Chinatown community. In the midst of local policy shifts to increase policing and prisons—including the planned construction of the world’s largest jail in the heart of Chinatown—this year underlined our commitment to linking local fights to global movements for liberation. Our programming this year reflected our sharpened political analysis and exploration from 2023. CRNY artists closed out their second and last year of residency with a grounding in collective care as resistance, and 2023–2024 brought the relaunch of our youth program Resist Recycle Regenerate (RRR), as well as the continuation of core programs such as From Chinatown, With Love.
Illustration by Singha Hon
RESIST RECYCLE REGENERATE
Following an internal year of pause, Fall 2023 brought the restart of RRR for its sixth year, under a revitalized curriculum created by RRR alums Serena, Bridget, and Vivian. The 2023–2024 cohort was made up of six fellows ages 16 to 22: Emma Hua, Vicki Li, Max McCall, My Ahn Phan, Sonia Tsang, and Sasa Yung; and a leadership team comprised of Program Director Yuki Haraguchi, Coordinator and RRR alumna Angela Chan, Program Leaders Alicia Kwok and Fanny Li, and Teaching Artist Joy Freund; all prior interns.
This year was shaped by emergent focus on themes of (collective) power, lineage, and familial love, and featured workshops from guest artists in a range of mediums. Each session provided an opportunity to connect artmaking with political education, grounded in the local context of the proposed megajail alongside the global context of imperial violence and capitalism. Guest teaching artists Ryan Wong, Serena Yang, Vincent Chong, and Joy Mao shared their wisdom in writing and poetry, bookbinding, and embroidery.
RRR leading a public paper making workshop at the public library. Image: Marion Aguas
RRR learning paper making. Image: Fanny Li
Fellows created a group project articulating their own interpretation of collective power and its role in social change. The result was Gertrude Chen, a 15-foot long rainbow dragon puppet operated by 6 people. Constructed from recycled soup containers, her individually designed scales hold a wealth of personal references to power and love including drawings, protest photos, and poems. RRR’s sixth year closed on June 22, 2024 at the Wing On Wo storefront with a final showcase, “Under The Same Skies”, where fellows presented their final independent projects. Details on the sixth cohort and their work can be found at W.O.W.’s website.
RRR working on their group project.
RRR’s final showcase at the storefront.
RRR collecting confetti at Super Saturday. Images: Marion Aguas
FALL PROGRAMS
CARTOGRAPHIES OF THE PRESENT
Our fall public program series “Cartographies of the Present: Charting Our Freedom Dreams” aimed to unsettle the relationships between arts, culture, social movements, and carceral expansion.
As plans to build the world’s tallest jail in Manhattan’s Chinatown continued to unfold, we examined how the terms of carceral expansion restrict our demands for change and possibilities for movement-building. Inspired by speculative fiction and abolition, we invited our community to embark on a journey with us through the past, future, and a vast multiverse of possibilities. Through interactive workshops and experimental forms of collective learning, we unlocked our imaginations and expanded our capacities to dream of—and build towards— better futures.
THE JAIL, THE POLICE, AND THE PEOPLE’S CHINATOWN: A ZINE LAUNCH PARTY
October 27, 2023 at Storefront for Ideas
The W.O.W. Project, Chinatown Art Brigade, and Immigrant Social Services hosted a launch party for two zines at the ISS Storefront for Ideas space. Both zines, “Envisioning Abolition in Our Local Asian American Communities” by Chinatown Art Brigade, and “The Jail, the Police, and the People’s Chinatown” by Serena Yang, explore the connections between the proposed megajail in Chinatown, the police and other forms of state control, and people’s struggles for self-
UNMAKING DYSTOPIA:
ABOLITION AT THE END OF THE WORLD
November 11 & 15, 2023 at Wing On Wo
Our second fall program was an opportunity to study the trajectory of prisons and punishment in the United States and New York City. Why was Rikers Island built? Why do reformers want to close it? By tracing stories of “the jail” from the 18th century to the present day, including moments of resistance and rupture, we wanted to better understand how today’s fight against the proposed Chinatown megajail is profoundly connected to historical and present struggles for justice and self-determination across the city and world.
MAKING POSSIBILITIES: ARTS, CRAFT, CULTURE AS WORLDBUILDING
December 2, 2023 at Thomas Paine Park
Storyholder and memory worker Kale Mays led the final program of our fall series as an opportunity to hold collective grief within the interlaced layers of ecocide and genocide that have caused the repeated construction, demolition, and resurrection of carceral spaces on the sacred shore of long-buried fresh waters. Together, we worked to propagate community memory through ritual offerings to the paved landscapes and buried waters that we now refer to as Lower Manhattan.
“I felt so lucky to collaborate with Serena for our fall program series...This series was grounded in stories - the deep importance of holding and sharing stories, from The Women’s House of Detention to the history of repeated ecocide and genocide memory keeper Kale Mays shared with us in Foley Square. Thank you so much to our collaborators, Angela Li, Tomie Arai, Denise Zhou, and Kale Mays for making this series possible.” — Yuki Haraguchi determination in Chinatown. With multiple activity stations including a reading nook and poetry collage station, community members gathered to celebrate the zines and name connections to recently exacerbated violence in Palestine.
LUNAR NEW YEAR 2024: YEAR OF THE WOOD DRAGON
We opened the year of the wood dragon with abundance, power, focus, and creativity. W.O.W. community demonstrated the power of peer-to-peer fundraising as a tool for community building and the strength of our shared purpose. The funds raised directly supported all of W.O.W.’s youth programs and youth employment. For this wood dragon year, we emphasized two purposeful messages: guided by the traits of the dragon, we renewed our commitment to a world where Chinatown serves and is shaped by its community—a world free from prisons and jails, filled with abundance, safety, and reciprocity. Guided by the nurturing qualities of wood, we committed to organize alongside interconnected fights for self-determination in Chinatown, and against exploitation and imperialism across the world.
Our fundraising teams and captains included:
W.O.W. Board
Team WOOD WOOD — Jen Louie
Team Pomelo — Olive Siu
Team Kyla and Jenny
Lucky Riso
Team You Woodn’t Want to Keep Dragon Your Feet on This — Christina Chin
Illustration by Juliet Phillips
FROM CHINATOWN, WITH LOVE 2024
We collaborated with Abrons Arts Center and lucky risograph to celebrate the Year of the Wood Dragon with the fourth edition of From Chinatown, With Love, a Lunar New Year calendar illustrated by Amanda Chung, Banyi Huang, Clae Lu, Jen Louie, Anson Lin, and Joy Freund. This year’s calendar provided much-needed mutual aid to 12 businesses within a 2-block radius of the proposed megajail site. We were thrilled to partner with Lucky Risograph again to design, print, and co-host our public programming for 2024’s iteration of FCWL (businesses listed at page 44). Abrons Art Center hosted an exhibition displaying past FCWL editions, which culminated in a day-long public crafting workshop led by Lucky Risograph Studio with support from CRNY artists on February 3, 2024.
and
“I loved working with W.O.W. Project and the small business owners—Mui of Mulberry Fruit Stand and Ming of Sun Sai Gai because it brought me closer to the community members that make Chinatown what it is. I felt inspired by our brief interactions and grateful for the opportunity to learn a little bit more about the history, challenges, and hopes for their business.” — Jen Louie
Mei, Mui,
Jen. Image: Esther Kim
Illustration by Jen Louie
LUNAR NEW YEAR
CALENDAR LAUNCH PROCESSION
The W.O.W. Project team and a group of lion dancers led by W.O.W. youth paraded around the neighborhood blessing our FCWL businesses with prosperity and good luck for the new year. This procession was also the debut of RRR’s group project, a 15-foot long dragon puppet named Gertrude Chen. The program concluded with a finale performance in front of the Wing On Wo storefront with our confetti paper lion head celebrating the start of another abundant year for W.O.W. Project’s cultural organizing work.
W.O.W. Team, RRR, and lion dance troupe smiling in front of Wing On Wo.
Mr. Lo, owner of New T.Y.K Trading Inc., holding the FCWL calendar to welcome our lions.
Images: Marion Aguas
Andy Ha, owner of Nha Trang One holding cabbage for a lion.
PEOPLE’S PROJECTION: COMMUNITY NOT CAGES
January 27, 2024 at 94 Baxter Street
We collaborated with The Illuminator to produce a night of gathering and political projections near the site of the proposed megajail. Our From Chinatown, With Love procession concluded on Baxter and Walker St., where we transformed a Chinatown building into a site of protest and dialogue about the borough-based jail plan and its violent impact on communities all over New York City.
This event shared a more complete story of the land the proposed megajail sits on, mapped lineages of solidarity in past and present, and called on artists, cultural workers, and architects to boycott all requests for artwork and design of the jails.
Illustration by Singha Hon
Anti jail projection being shown on a building across from the jail construction site. Image: Marion Aguas
SPRING PROGRAMMING
SPRINGS FROM BELOW WORKSHOP SERIES
Spurred by the urgency of profound violence and loss worldwide, the W.O.W. Team sought to craft spring programming that highlighted connections between genocidal, extractive violence abroad and local struggles against heightened policing and displacement. We questioned what it means to show up authentically in solidarity, and developed a program series that combined political education with discussion and artmaking. Throughout the spring, our CRNY artists collaborated to lead community members in the creation of pieces to use in a demonstration against the city’s ongoing borough-based jail plan.
TEACH-IN AT COLLECT POND PARK
March 29, 2024 at Collect Pond Park
W.O.W. team members co-led a conversational teach-in with Monica Mohapatra of Critical Resistance that connected local land and policing histories to genocide in Palestine. The facilitators covered an anticolonial history of the land on which Chinatown stands, an overview of Rikers and prison history, the emergence of mass incarceration, the first borough-based jail plan from 1979, the current borough-based jail plan launched in 2017, and current resistance efforts and initiatives. Elaboration on the connections between increased policing and violence abroad in Palestine unfolded as a conversation among the facilitators. The resource hub of materials shared at this teach-in and other events are shared online.
CALLING US HOME:
TEACHING AND LEARNING RESISTANCE
April 27, 2024 at Columbus Park
By the basketball courts of Columbus Park, we led a second iteration of March’s teach-in on Rikers history and the connections between
policing, prisons, and US imperialism abroad. Participants channeled their curiosity, despair, and hope, into decorating fabric strips that later became the tentacles of three jellyfish puppets used in the “Springs from Below: People’s Abolition Parade”. Participant decorating a fabric strip. Image: Marion Aguas
THE SOUND OF OUR POWER
May 5, 2024 at the W.O.W. Studio
CRNY artists Juliet Phillips and Singha Hon made ceramic bells with a group of elders from the Chinatown Kiwanis Club for Community Care. Through an afternoon of conversation and hand building with clay, the group explored concepts related to safety, and the importance of their voices in current conversations about Chinatown and jail construction. Bilingual facilitation support made it possible to have a cross-lingual conversation about safety and ceramics.
Kiwanis Club aunties making clay bells.
Kiwanis Club aunties painting bells. Images: Isabelle Zhao
SWIMMING UPSTREAM: CARP KITE-
MAKING WORKSHOP
May 23 & 31, 2024 at the W.O.W. Studio & Baruch Housing Community Room
Inspired by the Chinese legend of the carp leaping over the dragon gate, CRNY artists Joy Mao and Lorraine Lum led participants from Immigrant Social Services and Baruch NYCHA Houses in the design and hand carving of diamond-shaped “fish scales,” symbolizing windows into our future. Joy and Lorraine invited participants to print fish scales in response to the prompt “what can you imagine for our community in place of cops and carceral systems?” The scales were later constructed into a series of carp-shaped wind socks that flew in our People’s Abolition Parade.
PINS, PATCHWORK, AND POWER
June 1, 2024 at Columbus Park
Image: Cal Hsiao
The W.O.W. summer program team held space in Columbus Park for participants to create patchwork squares to contribute to a collective banner that later led the front of W.O.W.’s “Springs from Below: People’s Abolition Parade”. Using fabric, thread, ribbons, and found materials, participants responded to the prompt, “what do you dream for Chinatown in place of a jail?”
Images: Cal Hsiao
Participants making patches at a crafting table.
Participants crafting patches.
ANNIVERSARY PROGRAMMING
NO SUCH THING AS A HUMANE CAGE: A FILM SCREENING
June 21, 2024 at Columbus Park
The W.O.W. Project and cinemóvil nyc came together for an evening of films honoring resistance efforts against the US prison system. Through these films, we shared the history, wisdom, and art of political prisoners and organizers navigating survival from within, and discussed what we can apply and practice locally in the abolitionist struggle. Films shown are listed below:
• What These Walls Won’t Hold (2023, 43 min, dir. Adamu Chan) details the experiences of those incarcerated at California’s San Quentin State Prison during the height of COVID-19, inside/outside organizing for mass releases, and the transformative relationships that have pushed forth abolitionist struggle.
• Dark Cell Harlem Farm (2022, 26 min, dir. Alexander Johnston) draws together primary sources, graphic text, and reflections from formerly incarcerated individuals to explore the harrowing legacy of a prison plantation in southeast Texas, where eight Black men were killed by suffocation in 1913.
• New York: Close Spofford Campaign | CJNY Justice Spotlight (2011, 3 min, dir. Shadi Rahimi and Yoram Savion) highlights the grassroots movement to close the Spofford Juvenile Detention Center in the Bronx.
Audience attending W.O.W. and cinemóvil’s screening at Columbus Park. Image: Denise Zhou
SPRINGS FROM BELOW:
PEOPLE’S ABOLITION PARADE
Our spring parade was the culmination of our spring workshop series—a cultural intervention at the proposed megajail site. Through puppets, windsocks, signs, and other mediums, we transformed Baxter St. into a site of protest, dialogue, and joyous resistance. We asked our community in Chinatown and greater NYC to imagine a world where violence and harm are met not with cages, but with community, accountability, and care. The parade began and closed with beautiful performances from queer traditional Korean drumming group Pungmul, and convened community members and organizers from collectives including Nodutdol, Q-Wave, Chinatown Language Justice, Asians For Palestine, and Chinatown Art Brigade.
Marchers holding stamped carp windsocks.
Pungmul performing a drum opening.
Images: Marion Aguas
Joy Mao carrying a jellyfish puppet.
Asians 4 Palestine with their protest lion, Melon.
Coco and Sophia carrying the Pins, Power, and Patchwork banner.
Yuki leading chants with a megaphone with Gertrude.
March participants, community members, partner organizations, and W.O.W. Team in front of the Manhattan Detention Center.
Images: Marion Aguas
Guests watching the 8th Year Anniversary performances.
James reading poetry.
Omotara
Kai Naima Williams reading poetry.
Huda Asfour performing.
Guests participating in activity stations at the 8th Anniversary.
Guests mingling at the 8th Year Anniversary performances. Images: Isabelle Zhao
SPRINGS FROM BELOW:
PEOPLE’S ABOLITION PARADE CELEBRATION
June 15, 2024 at 92 Baxter Street
Following our parade, W.O.W. closed out our 8th year and anniversary programming with a celebration hosted across from the megajail construction site. The evening featured a lineup of performances by artists who shared work that spoke to the prompts, “What does embodying abolition look and feel like to you? What do you imagine in place of the jail?” Writers Kai Naima Williams, Omotara James, and Ghinwa Jawhari and musicians OHYUNG and Huda Asfour read and performed. The evening also included a showing of the projections displayed at “The People’s Projection: Community not Cages”, in
Ghinwa Jawhari reading poetry.
collaboration with Chinatown Art Brigade and The Illuminator. These projections share the story of the land on which Chinatown and the proposed megajail sit, the history and ongoing violence of NYC prisons and policing, and lineages of resistance and solidarity—past and present. Guzheng player Clae Lu and flutist Mr. Li provided live accompaniment to the projections.
Images: Isabelle Zhao W.O.W. Team smiling at the celebration.
OHYUNG performing.
SPECIAL THANKS
Enormous thanks to our volunteers, community members, and sponsor institutions that make W.O.W. magic possible. Our work could not happen without the generosity and commitment of our neighbors, friends, families, and partner institutions.
PROGRAM PARTNERS INSTITUTIONAL FUNDERS
Abrons Arts Center
CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities
Canal Sound and Light cinemóvil
Chinatown Art Brigade
Community Consultation Center
Grant St. Settlement Elders
Immigrant Social Services
Kiwanis Club Aunties
Lucky Risograph
Mexicanos Unidos
Midnight Projects
Naming the Lost Memorials
Creatives Rebuild New York
Lower Manhattan Cultural Council
Mellon Foundation
Ms. Foundation for Women
New York Women’s Foundation
Reisenbach Philanthropies
Ruth Foundation For The Arts
Scherman Foundation
New York Public Library: Chatham Square Branch
The Illuminator
Q-Wave
SUSTAINING DONORS
Betty Fermin
Brent Schroeter
Diana Li
Diane Wong
Hannah Miao
Kathryn Goldberg
lily bo shapiro
Maddison Murphy
Melo Davis
Monica Chen
Olive Siu
Rebecca Kao
San Tran
silvena chan
This annual report received creative direction from Mei Lum and Singha Hon
Written by Aishvarya Arora, Di Wang, & Joy Freund
Designed by Tiffany Wang
Front and Back Cover Images by Marion Aguas
CHINATOWN BUSINESSES
2023 YEAR OF THE RABBIT
TLB Trading Co 瑞麟行 — [153 E Broadway]
EWA Trading Co 裕華蔘茸藥材公司 [80 Mulberry St]
Spongies Cafe 紙包蛋糕咖啡店 [121 Baxter St]
Kopitiam 咖啡店 [151 E Broadway]
Wen Wah 文華服裝有限公司 [120 Mott St]
2024 YEAR OF THE DRAGON
Mulberry St. Fruit Vendors 茂比利街水果攤 [Mulberry and Canal St.]
Sun Sai Gai 新世界茶餐廳 [220 Canal St.]
Wah Yeung Co. 華洋有限公司 [81 Mulberry St.]
Asia Roma 羅馬 [40 Mulberry St.]
Nha Trang One 芽莊越南餐館 — [87 Baxter]
New Kam Man 金門食品公司 — [200 Canal St.]
Jojo Duck 九九鴨 [131 Walker St.]
Sweets Bakery 思味餅屋 [135 Walker St.]
Sun Vin Grocery 新榮食品雜貨公司 [75 Mulberry St.]
New T.Y.K Trading Inc. 長城人參補品藥材海味公司 [87A Bayard St. ]
Peony Chinese Bonzai 牡丹盆景花園 [106 Walker St.]
AppeTHAIze [75 Baxter St.]
HOW TO GET INVOLVED
Join W.O.W.’s Future as a Sustaining Donor!
As the year turns, we are always shifting our gaze between day-today and long-term visions for W.O.W. and Chinatown. Sustaining support breathes ease and spaciousness into our dynamic visioning, strengthening W.O.W.’s resource resilience. By becoming a sustaining donor, your monthly contribution is an integral part of our work. https://www.wowprojectnyc.org/donate
26 Mott St, New York, NY 10013
Social media handles @wowprojectnyc
Volunteer form https://bit.ly/2Pwl7Ob
W.O.W. website: https://wowprojectnyc.org/
