Photography by Melissa Blackall
Lani Asunción (they/she) born in the Bay Area in California now working on the East Coast in Boston, Mass., draws from their multiracial Filipinx-American lived experiences to explore the intricacies of identity and belonging, confronting the inner weaving of intergenerational trauma with ritualized happenings, through explorations of performance and public art that serve as acts of reclamation. They use transmedia storytelling and research in their interdisciplinary multimedia practice to create socially conscious work that encourages contemplation and reflection on counter narratives around collective resistance to settler colonial states and points to united creative collective liberation.
Asunción works in a wide range of mediums and technology becomes a conduit for connection and disruption, breaking down barriers and inviting participation. By challenging established narratives and amplifying marginalized voices, they seek to create spaces where alternative ethics of care, community healing, and social solidarity can thrive.
BIO
Asunción is the Pao Arts Center Public Art Manager & Curator of the Un-monument | Re-monument | De-Monument: Transforming Boston 2024 Temporary Public Art Projects & Performances in Chinatown supported by The Monuments Project at the Mellon Foundation. Their project Revolutionary AYAT was awarded the Public Art for Spatial Justice (2022) grant from New England Foundation for the Arts. They have received the Live Arts Boston grant from the Boston Foundation, Transformative Public Art grant from the City of Boston's, and the Dame Joan Sutherland Fund from the Australian American Association, and Kala Fellowship Award from Kala Art Institute. Their work has been exhibited in the group show Contact Zone: Waikīkī (2018) at Honolulu Museum of Art School presented by the Pu'uhonua Society, and solo exhibitions at BCA Mills Gallery, Real Art Ways, New Bedford Art Museum, Boston Children’s Museum, and Radial Gallery at the Department of Art & Design at Dayton University. They’ve attended residencies at MASS MoCA Studios as a Future Frequencies Fellow (Assets for Artists x CreateWell Fund), Vermont Studio Center, Santa Fe Art Institute, Center of Gravity with Walkaway, Wedding Cake House, Elsewhere Living Museum, BigCi in NSW, Australia, and Cerdeira: Home for Creativity in Lousã, Portugal. They are also the Artistic Director and founding member of Digital Soup, a queer multimedia art and performance collective, member of the BCA Studio Residency (2022-2025), and has served on the FPAC Development & Community Engagement Committee (Dev&CE) on the Board of Directors with Fort Point Arts Community. They create from their live/work studio at Midway Artist Studios which resides on the ancestral and unceded lands of the Massachusett people in the Fort Point Arts District in Boston, MA.
CURRENT PROJECTS
Duty-Free Paradise Asunción’s solo exhibition and performance series curated by J.R. Uretsky at the Mills Gallery at Boston Center for the Arts runs from January 20-April 13, 2024, Opening January 26 at 6-9 pm. This project was supported, in part, by a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant.
SONG/ LAND/ SEA | Water Warnings (2024-2025) a commissioned piece by the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy - a project focusing the climate crisis and the devastating results of global warming, sea levels rising and coastal flooding - resulting in environmental racism connected to gentrification and displacement of communities based around the site of the Big Dig (1991-2006). This work implores viewers to confront the realities of climate change and mobilize toward collective resilience and justice. Climate change is not a distant threat but an urgent reality, exacerbating existing inequalities and disproportionately impacting marginalized communities. Along the Greenway this installation resides along Chinatown where the effects of environmental racism are keenly felt, with neighboring Roxbury and Dorchester facing the brunt of urban heat islands. SONG/ LAND/ SEA | Water Warnings emerges as a public art installation and performance series serving as a warning of environmental change, echoing a dire warning amidst the accelerating climate crisis. As our earth undergoes rapid transformation, this work stands as a stark reminder of the profound shifts reshaping the coastline of the City of Boston.
@ lani.asuncion | @revolutionaryayat | @dfp_dutyfreeparadise | digitalsoup.events | @digital.soup
