Alex Chiu was born and raised in Malden and now lives in Melrose. She started ceramics in 2021 after she found that much of her time was consumed by responsibilities. She carried the weight of being the eldest daughter in a first-generation immigrant family, but also discovered that creating art honors that sacrifice. She currently studies and practices ceramics in Lynn at The Clay School.

Elizabeth Solomon is an elder and officer of the Massachusett Tribe at Ponkapoag. She speaks frequently about local Indigenous histories and issues and has a long-standing commitment to the preservation of cultural heritage and community building. Ms. Solomon has a master’s degree in museum studies and frequently works with museums and historic sites to help bring the voices and stories of Native communities and others that are currently underrepresented in museum exhibits and public history programs to the forefront.

Kimberly Villafuerte Barzola is a Peruvian-American Quechua archivist and multidisciplinary artist born and raised in Salem, Massachusetts. Her primary mediums include relief printmaking, painting, and digital illustration. She is motivated and inspired to create in response to historical research into the environmental and social histories of the Americas in the 20th and 21st centuries. She is currently based in the Northeast.

Sarah Kanouse (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist and critical writer examining the politics of landscape and space. Her solo and collaborative work has been presented through the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Documenta 13, Museum of Contemporary Art-Chicago, The Cooper Union, The Smart Museum, and numerous academic institutions and artist-run spaces.

Yamanda Wright is a psychologist and visual artists. Her creative work explores the concept of heritage, often through childhood memories, and she often combines relief printmaking, painting, and collage. Her artistic practice connects to community, exploring the full breadth of human experience and  lessons and traditions passed down from elders and ancestors. 

Yanna Marie Orcel is a Haitian American collage artist, painter, writer, and an arts educator whose work focuses on authentic  representations of the Black community. The artist holds a Masters of Research in Fine Arts & Humanities from the Royal College of Art. Her work plays on the juxtaposition of being both triggering and healing; aggressive and caring; vibrant and dark. Orcel resides in Massachusetts, where she was raised. 

Advisory Board

Alyssa Conary, historian/ Creative Collective

Anja Higashibaba, NSAAPI Board Member

Avri Taguiam, Salem Academy student leader

Gabriel Sosa, artist and activist 

Hehershe Busuego, Equity Initiatives at ECCF

Liana Galvan, Youth Poet Laureate

Michael Corley, activist/ City of Salem

Thomas Green, Massachusett Tribe

Shantel Alix Fernandez, North Shore CDC

This exhibition was conceived of by the Coalition director Rachel TonThat and made possible by our community members.

Former board member Aditi Ahlawat connected the Coalition with Professor Jan Padios at Williams College and her Intro to Asian Studies class who did brainstorming activities on what this exhibition could look like. One of the students, Chloe Yang, completed some exhibition research for her final project, and continued to help as a research assistant.

A community advisory board was formed to weigh in on the exhibition content and tone over two editing rounds.

We want to thank Kabria Baumgartner and Dan Lipcan and Emily Buff at the Phillips Library for their historical guidance along with many who connected us with others. We also want to acknowledge all of the historians who have created a foundation of research to work from.

Written by

Rachel TonThat and Chloe Yang

Designed and curated by

Rachel TonThat