At long last, here are some pictures of the Wing Luke "KidPLACE" children's book exhibition that I worked on - my biggest collaborative art project to date! For the past 10 months, I worked closely with a small planning committee at the Wing Luke Museum (a historical heritage museum devoted to Asian American culture) to plan, design, and install the exhibition. Our team had free reign to transform a 10'x12' room into a lush, forest-themed exhibit titled "Tales of Tails." I was responsible for creating many of the printed designs as well, including the text panels and the reading panda illustration.
This project was headed by Minh Nguyen and involved many talented contributors. My friend Rodney Bambao did all the production design for this exhibit, even going as far as building a to-scale diorama of the whole thing! My friend Ken Taya did a bunch of the cute animal art, and I also roped in Sam LaMonica to write all the text panels, since he works as an educational writer.
On opening day, I led a 2 hour art activity for a large classroom of children. The best part of that was after my art demo, when a bunch of the kids lined up to try out the digital tablet I brought. It was so much fun watching kids live-draw their favorite animals on the projection screen! It really lit a fire in me and I definitely want to pursue more teaching opportunities in the future!
