Curation
Temple of Our Ancestral Dreams
Installation view, “Temple of Our Ancestral Dreams,” Pao Arts Center, Boston MA, 2026. Photo by Mel Taing.
Prof. Peter Kiang shares restoration process of Mt. Hope Cemetery. Photo by Mel Taing.
Participants of the opening ceremony and the Guanyin altar. Photo by Mel Taing.
Installation view, “Temple of Our Ancestral Dreams,” Pao Arts Center, Boston MA, 2026. Photo by Mel Taing.
Participants of the opening ceremony light incense. Photo by Mel Taing.
Closing peace walk of the Performance Pilgrimages on the Immigrant History Trail. Photo by Mel Taing.
On view from April 8 to June 19, 2026 at Pao Arts Center
Temple of Our Ancestral Dreams remembers and honors those who have come before us—blood, chosen, and place-based ancestors, those who have dreamed of our existence today. This multi-disciplinary exhibit activates Chinatown as a memory archive, a diasporic temple, a space for spiritual, ancestral, and communal refuge.
The exhibition is co-curated with Sung-Min Kim.
Public Programs:
April 11, 2026
Ancestors of Chinatown: A Day for Remembering and Dreaming
May 16, 2026
Performance Pilgrimages on the Immigrant History Trail
June 13, 2026
Future Ancestors: Seeded Mythologies from the Adoptee Diaspora
Supported by the New England Foundation for the Arts' Public Art for Spatial Justice program, with funding from the Barr Foundation and the Fund for the Arts at NEFA.
Press:
Danni Shen, “At Pao Arts Center, Ancestors Take Many Forms in ‘Temple of Our Ancestral Dreams,’” Boston Art Review.
Chenxing Han, “The Spirits Shape-Shift,” Tricycle: Buddhist Review.
Greg Cook, “‘Temple of Our Ancestral Dreams’ At Pao Arts Center, Wonderland.
Adam Smith, “Envisioning Chinatown as Temple, Art Group Invites You on 'Pilgrimage,'” Sampan Newspaper.
Spiritual Diasporas: A Performance Ceremony and Symposium
Post-performance conversation with artists mica rose and Dohee Lee, Photo by Sung-Min Kim
Spiritual Diasporas Symposium schedule, Design by John Stark.
December 3-5, 2025, Tufts University Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies.
A series of week-long embodied gatherings that draw on performance ritual and spiritual ceremony to cultivate care, agency, and worldbuilding through which we experience wholeness. How might we tend to the spirits of this land and of our kin through ceremony? How do we invoke and reckon with entangled colonial histories and their continuations through communal stories, songs, and rituals?
By framing these gatherings as “spiritual diasporas,” we gesture towards the fragmentations and frictions across multiple experiences of migration, not as lack but as a productive portal for creation. By activating the body as an instrument to reclaim and reconnect with spirituality, we cultivate life-affirming power to come together to be in embodied presence with one another and our ancestors.
These intimate gatherings include artist workshops, performance ceremony, devised performance workshop, talking circle, and dance party across Wednesday, December 3 through Friday, December 5 on the Medford campus.
Artists in Residence: mica rose and Dohee Lee.
Co-organized with DeVante Love, Sung-Min Kim, and Elisa Peebles.
SPELLBOUND: A Magical Evening of Live Art
Organizers Lena Chen and Wenxuan Xue.
MC Candace Persuasian engages with the audience.
April 18, 2025. The Foundry, Cambridge MA
An enchanting evening bringing together art and scholarship as part of the Association for Asian American Studies Annual Meeting. Spellbound showcases Boston-based and national Asian American and SWANA artists staging queer and fantastic performances, spanning drag, song, ritual, installation, and spoken-word.
Participating artists include Candace Persuasian, Anh Vo, Feda Eid, payal kumar, Qais Assali, Laurel Nakadate, Midori, and Patricia Nguyen. Co-organized with Kareem Khubchandani, Sung-Min Kim, Lena Chen, and NAMI Evan Sakuma.
an archive and/or a repertoire
Installation View, “an archive and/or a repertoire,” Tufts University Art Galleries, 2025. Photo by Mel Taing.
Mobius, Inc. archival display, “an archive and/or a repertoire,” Photo by Mel Taing.
Installation View, “an archive and/or a repertoire,” Tufts University Art Galleries, 2025. Photo by Mel Taing.
Exhibition programming, “an archive and/or a repertoire,” Photo by Mel Taing.
On View Jan 29 – Apr 20, 2025, Tufts University Art Galleries
an archive and/or a repertoire explores the liminal spaces that emerge between archives and ephemeral new media. Featuring the Mobius, Inc. Records —the administrative archive of the Boston-based Mobius Artists Group—this exhibition serves as a local laboratory, delving into materials from Mobius’ experimental performances, new media projects, sound works, dances, and installations. Currently housed in Tufts Archival Research Center (TARC), the Mobius, Inc. Records contains organizational records, photographs, and video documentation from c. 1968 to 2009, chronicling the early work of individual members and the artist-run organization founded by artist Marilyn Arsem, who also founded the Performance Area at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (SMFA), where she taught for over a quarter century.
an archive and/or a repertoire is organized by Tufts University Art Galleries (TUAG) Curator Laurel V. McLaughlin, PhD, with assistance from TUAG Graduate Research Fellow Wenxuan Xue (Tufts University PhD Candidate in Theatre and Performance Studies), Senior Preparator and Installation Manager David Thacker, and Exhibitions Assistant Meera Chauhan, in dialogue with artist and Mobius founder Marilyn Arsem and participating artists.