As America’s 250th birthday approaches, cultural institutions across Philadelphia are gearing up to host special events celebrating the history of American democracy. The Walnut Street Theatre will run 1776 The Musical. Tempeste di Mare, Philadelphia’s Baroque orchestra, will perform songs popular during the American Revolution. Multiple museums will run exhibits on early American history.
At the Asian Arts Initiative in Chinatown, the celebrations focus on a more recent historical chapter. The arts center’s splashy new exhibition, No Arena: Making a Movement, spotlights the grassroots campaign that fought the Philadelphia 76ers’ push to build an arena near Chinatown from 2022 to 2025.
“We were trying to figure out what we would like to put forward in a moment when we weren’t feeling really celebratory about American democracy,” said Dave Kyu, director of programs at Asian Arts Initiative. Kyu and his colleagues decided the No Arena campaign, which organized people across the city in a fight against a powerful corporation, should be spotlighted during America’s semiquintennial as a local example of democracy in action.
The exhibition, which features protest art and archival materials from the campaign, reflects what Kyu called the “messiness of organizing.” Colorful protest signs, handwritten postcards, photographs, and slightly wrinkled No Arena t-shirts are arranged on the walls in playful disarray. A piece of butcher paper, covered in sticky notes, invites guests to share their memories of the movement. The back wall is covered with a floor-to-ceiling photograph of protestors linking arms and awaiting arrest.
Photo courtesy of Constance Mensh, Asian Arts Initiative
Rather than moving chronologically, the show carries visitors through the emotional ups and downs of the campaign, with spaces that evoke joy, confrontation, and, ultimately, transformation. In a neighborhood rattled by Donald Trump’s immigration policies, the exhibit offers community members a chance to feel hope and pride. “I think it’s really important, especially at a time where there’s so much happening and there’s a lot of negative news to have this moment of hopefulness,” said Lauren Lowe, an organizer with Asian Americans United, one of the organizations co-presenting the exhibition.
The 76ers withdrew their proposal to build an arena in Market East just eight days before President Trump began his second term in office. Many of the community organizers who had fought the proposal dove immediately into anti-ICE organizing, leaving them with little time to reflect on their historic win. “It ended so abruptly,” Lowe said. “There was a little bit of whiplash.”
Some of the organizers, including celebrated activist Debbie Wei, approached Kyu asking if the Asian Arts Initiative could host an exhibit on the No Arena movement that would honor the many people across the city who had participated in the campaign. Kyu was interested, but he thought the Asian Arts Initiative would need to partner with other community groups to make the exhibit happen. Asian Americans United, Asian Pacific Islander Alliance, and the Philadelphia Folklore Project signed on as co-presenters.
“It always needed to be kind of a community that came together to present the exhibition,” Kyu said. “We could draw within our network, like, ‘oh this person still has this art piece in their basement.’” The group assembled a rich trove of art works, most of which were made with help from volunteers. Of the roughly 100 of works on display in the exhibition, Kyu said only nine were attributed to a professional artist. He said the rest “resisted attribution” because they’d been made in community settings. “It was like, we rolled out the banner,” Kyu said. “Yes, there was somebody that thought about the outline and made the format, but then 12 people came together and executed that.”
Photo courtesy of Constance Mensh, Asian Arts Initiative
Vivian Chang, the executive director at Asians Americans United, explained that for community members who worked on the pieces on display, the experience of seeing their work in an “elevated setting” was affirming. “People definitely feel like, ‘Oh wow, this stuff belongs in a museum,’” she said. There’s “that sense of ‘this is so official, and we get to be here too.’”
On a recent Thursday evening, a group of people huddled around a table in the center of the gallery space. A grinning dragon with shiny gold scales slithered along the wall to their left. Hand painted banners draped from the ceiling. A floor-to-ceiling collage of photographs and painted faces covered the wall behind them. It was a colorful, eye-catching display that Kyu aptly described as “maximalist in the best way.” But for the moment, no one was gazing at the art on the walls. They were too busy making their own.
The people seated at the table were participating in a poetry workshop with David Acosta and Mabel Lee, local writers who participated in the No Arena campaign. In the back of the building, other groups were busy singing movement songs and turning old cereal boxes into protest signs.
The event, Art for Resistance, was one in a series Asian Arts Initiative is hosting in tandem with the exhibition. The events serve as a kind of bridge between the present and recent past, creating a space for organizers to reflect on the No Arena campaign while bringing new activists into the fold.
Photo courtesy of Constance Mensh, Asian Arts Initiative
Many of the people who attended had not participated in the No Arena protests. Some were learning about Chinatown’s long legacy of community organizing for the first time.
Mark Baek said he had recently “gotten into organizing” through the Ginger Arts Center. He described the exhibition as educational, saying he had not been aware that Chinatown community members have fought development projects throughout much of the neighborhood’s history.
Juny Ardon recently moved to Philadelphia from Los Angeles, where she felt inspired by the anti-ICE protests. As a graphic designer, she came to the event looking to receive advice from other artists involved in activism. “I took so many gems of wisdom from people that are doing the work,” she said after listening in on a panel discussion with artists who participated in the No Arena movement. “I am really grateful I’m here.”
At the end of the evening, the workshop participants fanned out in a large circle to share what they’d created. Three friends shared signs they’d decorated that said “Migration is beautiful.” Members of Son Revoltura, a collective that performs Afro-Indigenous folk music, led a group through a protest song.
Photo courtesy of Constance Mensh, Asian Arts Initiative
Katherine Antarikso read a poem she composed earlier in the evening. Antarikso was an active participant in the No Arena campaign, attending protests and hearings at City Hall. She was excited to see an exhibition so soon after the No Arena campaign had ended. “Usually you see these things 10 years or 20 years later, and then it’s hard to find some of the materials for the archives,” she said. “They’ve done such an amazing job keeping everything.”
Given Chinatown’s history, Antarikso said she expects the neighborhood will face other development threats in the future. She hopes the next generation of activists will draw inspiration from the No Arena exhibition. “I love that there is an archive and an exhibit so that we can show the future generation that this is probably going to happen again,” she said. “We were able to fight it now. In the future you can fight again.”
Great story well told.
You didn’t fight hard enough, you didn’t win by fighting but they quit. This country is full of asian americans and not enough were involved. Your real enemy was mayor parker and none of you ever brought that out enough. I respect Chinatown since the late 50’s but you’re letting it change for the worse. I miss your elders.