Sightlines: Chinatown and Beyond highlights the imprint of Asian Americans on the physical and cultural terrain of Washington, D.C.

Presented by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, the exhibition is on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (800 G Street NW) from September 7, 2024 to November 30, 2025.

Reserve your free tickets for the exhibition opening festival on September 7, 2024!

Installed in a gallery overlooking G Street NW in D.C.’s historical Chinatown neighborhood, the Sightlines exhibition provides glimpses into the complexity and depth of Asian American connections to the city. The featured stories highlight examples of cultural production that interpret elements of Chinese, Korean, and Javanese heritage or express coalitional Asian American and BIPOC identities. These are presented in displays of artwork, material culture, images, and other graphic material drawn from Smithsonian collections as well as shared by local lenders, including community members and repositories such as the D.C. History Center and the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University.

Three works of art anchor the exhibition and are positioned at the center of the gallery. Each corresponds to a location in Chinatown, which is indicated on a floor map. These pieces guide visitors to the surrounding walls to explore the broader exhibition themes of Making Place, Transforming Tradition, and Visualizing Identity. The anchor objects underscore interconnected stories, inviting visitors to see D.C. differently and, in the process, gain new insights into the contributions of Asian Americans to the nation’s capital.

Friendship Archway, Streetscape at Seventh and H Streets NW, 1985–86. AEPA Architects Engineers PC

Making Place

This work on paper, produced by AEPA Architects Engineers P.C., depicts the iconic Chinese-style archway designed by Alfred H. Liu (1942-2021) and installed at a major intersection in Chinatown. Born in China and raised in Taiwan, Liu was a child art prodigy who earned degrees in both physics and architecture. This object introduces the Making Place section, which elaborates on Liu’s vision for a more Asian-looking Chinatown and presents it alongside the creative projects of Eastern Wind, a collective of Asian American students who were concerned with uplifting community histories.

Transforming Tradition

This sculpture was made by artist Terence Nicholson (b. 1968), a 19th-generation disciple of the Wudang Longmen (Dragon Gate) lineage. He created this sculpture with the Kung Fu sashes recovered after the closing of his teacher's school in Chinatown. This piece introduces the Transforming Tradition section, which traces some of the relationships shaping a diverse landscape of Asian martial arts practice in the region. Among the groups featured is Simba Dojang, founded as a primarily African American Tae Kwon Do community, which was the region’s “winningest” team in the 1970s.

Safety Jacket: A Mourning in Chinatown, 2018. Terence Nicholson (American, born 1968). Mixed media. Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum, 2022.1.1.
MISS CHELOVE, also known as Cita Sadeli (American, born 1972), Rise Up! DC Stands United Against Hate (2020). Digital print, wheatpaste. Courtesy of the artist

Visualizing Identity

The exhibition includes a reproduction of a wheatpaste installation created by MISS CHELOVE (b. 1974) on a boarded-up business in Chinatown during the protests and counter-protests that followed the murder of George Floyd in June 2020. MISS CHELOVE, aka Cita Sadeli, is a prolific muralist who combines local and biographical storytelling with the tools and methods of street art. This work introduces the Visualizing Identity section, which focuses on how this individual artist represents her multiple community and cultural connections—including her Javanese heritage—in public art.

Acknowledgments

Sightlines: Chinatown and Beyond is supported by a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation and made possible through support from the Terra Foundation for American Art and the Surdna Foundation. The exhibition has also received federal funding from the Asian Pacific American Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center; the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative Pool, administered by the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum; and the Smithsonian Collections Care Initiative Pool, administered by the National Collections Program.

The exhibition is guest curated by Sojin Kim from the Smithsonian’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage with support from Adriel Luis, APAC’s curator of digital and emerging practice, and Mia Owens, curatorial assistant. It was designed by the award-winning firm TSKP x IKD.

The Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center wishes to thank members of the exhibition advisory committee for their guidance and assistance:

Rita Cacas
Harry Chow
Ted Gong
Veronica Jackson
Jack Lee
Penny Lee
Asia Liu
Stan Lou
Furman Marshall
Michael Marshall
Marya McQuirter
Chris Moore
Terence Nicholson
Cita Sadeli
Anthony Sarmiento
Carl Walker
David Wong
Raymond Wong