Can brown palms and yellow balms cure the planet’s deepest wounds? The caregiver— she who opens a newborn’s eyes and closes the eyes of the dying—remains overwhelmingly female and disproportionately a person of color. Fate casts Asian and Asian American women into a culture of service, entrapping them as designated doulas, named nannies, and overburdened overseas workers—sacrificial figures dissolving self for the sake of family. The gender bias is familiar; the lopsided burden these women are expected to bear not examined enough.

The Brown Palms, Yellow Balms: Reinventing Caregivers of Color exhibition unfolds in ever-expanding circles of caregiving, mirroring the Buddhist Metta practice—beginning with the body as the most intimate site of care and spiraling outward to embrace family, community, collective archetypes, deities, and the environment.

Immerse yourself in depictions of nurturing, nursing, birthing, mothering, mending, comforting, restoring, resuscitating, protecting, soothing, cheering, reclaiming, and empowering—not just the Self, but Society and the Cosmos—all viewed through the lens of AAPI cultural heritage, history, and socio-political landscapes.

Celebrate with us the ancestral wisdom and cultural practices, poultices and potions, talismans and taboos, superstitions and spiritual practices, deities and demons that keep our spirits fierce, shape our bonds, and keep both humanity and the planet afloat.

–O.M. France Viana, Lead Artist & Curator

For exhibition programs and details, visit the AAWAA website

Artwork credit: Self Portrait with Jasmines, Sweetpeas, and Woman and Child (detail) by Fatima Ronquillo
© Fatima Ronquillo

Akiko Suzuki
Allison Hueman*
Angela Chu
Angela Han
Cynthia Alberto
Cynthia Tom
Dev Heyrana
Diana Li
Diana Yi-Yi Chen
Eve Mai Thuy
Fatima Ronquillo*
Fumiyo Yoshikawa

Gericault Dela Rose*
Jenifer K Wofford*
Johanna Poethig
Julia LaChica
Kiko Sison-Dunlavy
Kimberley Acebo Arteche*
Lisa Chun Rodondi
Lydia Nakashima Degarrod
Maia Cruz Palileo*
Mariel Paat
Meesha Goldberg
Michelle P. Hirsch

Nancy Hom*
Ngân Vũ
Pallavi Sharma
Pinaree Sanpitak*
Qinqin Liu
Redd Jia
Reiko Fujii
Salma Arastu
Sarah Wang
Sonia Betts
Terry Tsu*
Xyza Cruz Bacani*
*indicates Invited Artists

Nellie Wong
Zara Ahmed

Anna Kim
April Werle
Chia Hwu
Christine Abiba
Coy Viana
Ebony Soy
Jennifer Lugris
Jocelyn Wong

Katie Quan
Kay Kang
Mariela Montero
Menaja Ganesh
Na Omi J. Shintani
nimisha doongarwal
r.a.d.
Sangita Biswas

Susan Almazol
Terry Acebo-Davis
Venazir Martinez
Yeu Q Nguyen
Yixuan Wu