ABOUT US

The Seattle Asian Art Museum is set to re-open February 2020 after closing for a $55 million renovation and remodel.  The re-imagined and re-envisioned Asian Art Museum now offers a thematic, rather than geographic or chronological, exploration of art from the world’s largest continent.  An innovative partnership between the City of Seattle’s Office of Arts & Culture and the museum has brought an unprecedented focus on local and contemporary Asian Pacific Islander (API) artists in a series of free workshops, pop-up events, temporary installations, and community gatherings curated by local Corean artist Che Sehyun.  Through a competitive process, Che’s public art proposal titled The Future Ancient was selected to expand SAAM’s opening events on the weekend of February 8 and 9, 2020, and continue throughout the summer to showcase the incredible talent of local API artists and community who value their cultural heritage in a future-forward and socially transformative way. 

The Future Ancient is an empowering model of public art, strategic community investment, and a curatorial process, which will present six months of free public programming that centers the life and perspective of local API artists.  In linking the mission of the Seattle Art Museum – to connect art to life and foster creativity and community – and intersecting with Seattle’s Office of Arts & Culture’s values of equity, inclusion and access – The Future Ancient invests in and empowers local API artists doing the work through dollars, institutional support, and professional development alongside six months of community-lead public art engagements.  The Future Ancient is a framework that seeks to expand our consciousness and appreciate our diverse cultural heritage and past legacies in future forward thinking and transformative way.

Special thanks to our partners.