The Bay Area's Hub for Asian Pacific American Community Arts Since 1972
APAture 2015: Future Tense
Featured Artists | Artist Bios
Thi Bui was born in Vietnam three months before the end of the Vietnam War, and immigrated to the United States. with her family in 1978. She studied art and legal studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and received an M.F.A. in sculpture from Bard College and a master's degree in art education from New York University. At one point she wanted to be a civil rights lawyer, but she got her head on straight and became a public school teacher instead. She is a founding teacher of Oakland International High School, the first public high school in California for recent immigrants and English learners. She also mentors students in the M.F.A. in comics program at the California College of the Arts. The Best We Could Do is her first graphic novel. She lives in Berkeley with her son, her husband, and her mother.
Jethro Patalinghug is a Bay Area filmmaker with more than 12 years experience in television and corporate video production; and he is now working as a video producer for Adecco at Google. His documentary film, "My Revolutionary Mother," won best short documentary at the following festivals: the Boston Asian American Film Festival, the Singkwento International Film Festival, and the Unofficial Google Film Festival. It also won Best Filipino Focus documentary at the Cebu International Documentary Film Festival and first honorable at Asians on Film Festival, and has been an official selection to CAAMFest 2013, Cinemalaya 2015, the Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival 2014. His APAture 2015 featured film, "#MyNameIs," is about a protest movement against Facebook's "authentic" name policy. His next films tackle issues surrounding grassroots LGBT organizations in San Francisco, such as the Imperial Council and the Leather Community.
Siamak Vossoughi was born in Tehran, Iran, and grew up in London, Orange County, and Seattle. He graduated from the University of Washington and has lived in San Francisco for 20 years and currently works at Presidio Hill School. Some of his stories have been published in Glimmer Train, Kenyon Review Online, Washington Square, The Missouri Review, The Rumpus, and Fourteen Hills. He was awarded the 2014 Flannery O’Connor for Short Fiction for his collection Better Than War.
AstraLogik are an eclectic soul duo residing in San Jose, California. Their diverse taste in music takes audiences on a journey where they hear performances that include tinges of neo-soul, R&B, roots, hip-hop, electronic, world, and indie. AstraLogik have performed for (non-profit) grassroots community organizations, festivals, and events all over the Bay Area and are emerging artists from roots of struggle, growth, love, and awakening. In April 2015, they launched their first EP, called DREAM AWAKE. Behind each song is a journey in remembering heart, engaging the mind, and reinvigorating the belief in the "good things coming." Their goal is to spread their light to the masses through their vibrations of music.
SPULU grew up in Oakland. He is an Alvin Ailey Camp (Berkeley/ Oakland) Alumni (2005) and has been working as an Ailey Group leader/mentor since 2012. He's danced for multiple companies in the Bay Area: Future Shock Oakland, Destiny Arts, Chapkis Dance, Strong Pulse Dance Company, and Culture Shock Oakland. He is now the administrative director for Future Shock Oakland and is currently studying dance at San Francisco State University with an emphasis in race and resistance studies. His dance style is a modern contemporary fusion of Pacific Islander cultural movement and hip-hop. In the future, SPULU hopes to graduate and open a visual and performing arts school in the Bay Area.
Kimberley Acebo Arteche is from the DMV (Washington, D.C., Maryland, Virginia area) and received her B.F.A. in visual arts/photography from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She is a recipient of the Leo D. Stillwell Jr. Scholarship, the Christine Tamblyn Memorial Scholarship, and the Cadogan Fellowship. Her work has been showns at the SOMArts Cultural Center for the Murphy and Cadogan Contemporary Art Awards showcase, and at Root Division for MFA Now 2015. Kimberley teaches ethnic studies with Pin@y Educational Partnerships, at Skyline College. She is currently a graduate student at San Francisco State University and will complete her M.F.A. in spring 2016.