APASA’s Cultural Artivism Expo , as told from the perspective of Carter Kawaguchi, one of our APASA interns, and Tina Nguyen, one of our Co-Internal Community Chairs.

Cultural Artivism Expo is APASA’s annual event focused on highlighting the incredible artists and activists within the USC and greater Los Angeles area. This year’s Cultural Artivism Expo theme was “The Right to Heal.” This encapsulated our co-Advocacy Chairs’, Christina Vo and Alice Phung’s, vision of facilitating a space for the APIDA community to uplight each other and celebrate through art.

A change that they wanted to make this year was introducing more advocacy and community organizations (hence the change from Cultural Art Expo to Cultural Artivism). Each brought forth a unique aspect of APIDA culture and intersectionality that really exhibited the connection between art and activism. For this year, we were fortunate to have been able been able to welcome 6 external community organizations to USC:

Songwriters’ Forum is an organization where singers, songwriters, producers, and instrumentalists connect and create original music together and their overall vision is to cultivate a community of collaborative music-makers regardless of background.
Pacific Asian Counseling Services was founded upon the documented lack of social services for Asian Pacific Islanders in Los Angeles and strives to enrich their lives through counseling and caring.
Saahas For Cause is a public health organization that focuses on prevention and social determinants of health and whose mission is to educate, empower, and enable the South Asian immigrant community to improve their quality of life.
Whittier Pride strives to create a space for the LGBTQ+ community to have conversations about acceptance, inclusion and tolerance and to provide them access to resources like mental health, youth counseling, and health services.
South Asian Network’s mission is to advance the health, emotional and mental well-being, and civil rights of South Asians in Southern California by providing them with culturally specific case management and support services and educational workshops on destigmatizing mental health and other taboo topics.

APASA group selfie (pictured left to right: Carter, Kendal, Kylie, Taran, Tina) — Our lovely APASA interns & e-boarders (from left to right): Carter, Kendal, Kylie, Taran, Tina!

Having the opportunity to experience CAE last year, Tina was excited to see how this year’s event would come to life and Carter was pumped to experience his first CAE. We knew that we didn’t want to miss any of the performances, so we purposely signed up for a check-in shift before performances started (hehe). As the lights dimmed and the music started playing, we quickly found ourselves seats in the audience. From singers to acapella groups to dancers, all 6 of our performers were absolutely mesmerizing.

The night started off with an incredible vocal performance ToriAnn Abe who sang a beautiful representation of her experience with healing in her song “flawlessly broken.” Bringing some more spice to the room, the KASA Dance Off board performed a fun and upbeat choreo to Boy’s a Liar Pt. 2 (a song that’s been on repeat for Carter). Coming in swinging with moves that were a little more “defensive,” the Shinkendo Swordsmanship Club demonstrated some basic martial arts forms with what our emcees, Sea Gira and Ryan Sung, emphasized were “NON-LETHAL practice equipment.” Good to know that USC has another group of Trojan knights to protect us! Spade A was next to pop (get it? K-pop) on stage with their performances of “Thirsty” by aespa and “Shooting Star” by XG. Coming back down to Earth from kwangya (iykyk), Asli Baat and Trogons blessed our ears with some dazzling acapella performances. Hearing JJ Lin from Trogons was super nostalgic to hear and Asli Baat’s energy and skill was super impressive!

APASA interns Sea and Ryan as our CAE emcees!

With our lovely emcees closing off the performances, hungry college students quickly lined up for their samosas from Himalayan House and onigiris from Rice & Nori. As APASA e-board and interns handed out food, attendees walked around the various artist and community organization booths and socialized as they ate.

Popping from table to table, Carter’s favorite booths were the Songwriters’ Forum and Helena Lu’s! He had the opportunity to write some “fire bars” in the Songwriters’ Forum’s lyric writing workshop and hear other average attendees’ songwriting potential. Knowing Helena from Kazan Taiko, Carter was happy to see their art and design displayed for the USC APIDA community! It was also super nice to see their work helping out community organizations with some fundraiser commissions they had!

Tina wandered through almost every single booth, collecting art prints and baked goods along the way. Here’s everything she came home with that night: matcha tiramisu from Joyce Liang, a capybara art print from Helena Lu, and a lovely self-portrait on a sticky note from Trenyce Tong (probably the best thing I’ve acquired in college!)

As the night drew to a close, attendees departed with various prints and goodies in hand, and we trust they left with unforgettable memories of an amazing evening. As APASA E-boarders and interns posed for our last photos in the photo booth, we were thrilled by the success of the event. However, the event couldn’t have been possible without Christina Vo, Alice Phung, and Sophia Lu, who spent months preparing to bring CAE to life. Driven by the ideals of personal interaction, artistic creation and appreciation, activism, and the incredible talents of our performers and artists, the Cultural Artivism Expo 2023 proved to be an enriching experience for all attendees.

Cultural Artivism Expo 2023 💫