Community Engagement

Three community dinner events were held as part of the community engagement process. In all events, community members came together to share a meal and stories around the topic of Invasive Species. The Fall 2022 Dinner fostered intimate conversations about personal migrations and plant cultivation. The Spring 2024 Dinner, entitled Displaced But Rooted, featured curated food offerings by Chef Laquanda Dobson, centered around the Invasive Species conversation. At this event, eo Studio set up a digital storybooth, enabling visitors to self-record their stories, of which selections are included in the Outdoor Installation and the Performance. The Winter 2023 Dinner marked the end of the public exhibitions and events, and was attended by many participants and collaborators of the project, including representatives at SEPTA, the Rail Park, and Community College of Philadelphia.

Asian Arts Initiative’s annual Block Party took place on October 1, 2022 and October 8th, 2023, both celebrating the Invasive Species project and the Cut. The 2023 Block Party took place in Matthias Baldwin Park and brought together members of the neighboring communities. The Block Party was an opportunity for the public to meet the lead artists, and to enjoy music, poetry, dance offerings, with local food and drinks.

When we say something is in the cut, we mean it is hidden away, in a secluded, tucked away place that only a chosen few may know about. In the cut is a deeply familiar and intimate place. It is a place off the map; it is uncharted and unnamed space. Its very namelessness is a form of cover and protection. Portability, even.

Nobody: Where you been? Haven’t seen you in a minute.
Me: Oh I been around. Just chillin in the cut.

A few years ago, our neighbors in Germantown warned us about planting bamboo in our yard. It’ll take over, they said. It’ll run amuck and then what will you do?

the only way to restrain it, they said
was to surround the roots with concrete
so they wouldn’t spread.

Now, if we talked about people the way we talk about plants and animals … well, actually we do. We verminize folks fleeing their homelands for safer spaces. We fear they will take over what land and resources we think are ours. We extract and weed out and assimilate any difference that seems to spread.

The truth is we humans all sing an invader’s song. And yes, some of us sing the songs of endangered-invasive species, our days numbered by cruelty, carelessness, and the micromanagement of space.

Art – especially our music, dance, poetry, song – is a rhizomatic expression that can’t be so easily weeded out. It’s made of the breath and atoms of people who have always and already been here. It is made of both artist and audience. Our art, born of collaboration and the mystery between strangers, makes new roots, is fertilizer for the stale soil of the past. The rhythm of these roots is unbroken and runs amuck. Art tends to both body and spirit, present and future.

These performers and their performances come from a cut - a hidden, familiar place, a wound, a separation, a leaving, a breaking away and towards. All are both here and there. Between somewhere and here. Between I and you. Some Philly artists are born and raised in the cut of red lines and white flight. Many come from somewhere else where the waters are rising and arrive to make this city home. In the face of migration, gentrification, and displacement, what songs do we sing together? What happiness and hopes do we dare seek and share? How—all up in the smug face of destruction—do we make our magic in the cut and out in the open?

Assembled during the pandemic by Serena Hocharoen, Cookie Club is a group of 5 friends who love to talk about home cooking, family recipes, and diasporic foodways. Learning as we go, sharing intermittently and across distance, we also find occasions to throw down together. Cookie Club Philadelphia Chapter comprises Heidi Ratanavanich, Tess Wei, and Connie Yu.

On October 28, 2023, Asian Arts Initiative’s youth programs, the Youth Arts Workshop and the Youth Leadership Initiative visited Iglesias Garden as part of the Invasive Species project. The program was led by Iglesias Garden’s community members, Anthony and Michael. Youths learned about the history of the garden, the continuous work to maintain the garden, its impact to the local community, and the importance of cultural history and traditions in urban spaces. Youths participated in an in-depth tour of the multi-sectional garden, a composting activity where they learned about the garden’s process and helped members turn the compost pile, and lastly they enjoyed a corn masa meal prepared by volunteers.