2024 BIPOC Elders + Culture Bearers
Frank Chin
Frank is widely considered to be the major champion for Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) writers in the 1970s, and his work continues to impact present-day AAPI writers and theatremakers. He is uncompromising in his critique of racism and negative portrayals of AAPI people. He has continued to be an advocate for redress and reparations for Japanese American WWII draft resisters and those in incarceration camps, and was a key part in the establishment of the Day of Remembrance, which marks the signing of Executive Order 9066 that stripped the rights of Japanese Americans.
There would be no AAPI theatre as we know it today without Frank’s influence as a writer, champion of AAPI voices, and his unflinching calling out of racism—both from outside and inside the AAPI community. He was one of the first to present positive, non-stereotypical AAPI male characters on stage and the first AAPI playwright to have a play mounted on a major NYC theatre stage, the American Place Theatre.
Frank firmly believes that all art is political and that the role of the artist is to “fix it.” He accepts this grant with great suspicion and believes healthy suspicion is necessary and aligns with Emile Zola’s philosophy on awards.
Frank’s desired headshot is a cherished piece of art that Frank’s son, Sam Chin, drew of him in 1992.
Rhodessa Jones
Rhodessa Jones is Co-Artistic Director of the acclaimed San Francisco performance company Cultural Odyssey. She is an actress, teacher, director, and writer. Ms. Jones is also the Director of the award-winning Medea Project: Theater for Incarcerated Women, a performance workshop designed to achieve personal and social transformation with incarcerated women and women living with HIV. Rhodessa was a Frank H.T. Rhodes Class of 1956 Visiting Professor at Cornell University. In addition, she was also invited by Dartmouth College to be a Montgomery Fellow to be in residence in early Fall 2017.
In December 2016, Rhodessa received a Theatre Bay Area LEGACY AWARD presented to individuals that have made “extraordinary contributions to the Bay Area theatre community.” During Spring 2016, Rhodessa was a Visiting Artist in Residence at University of California, Berkeley, teaching Theater C183A Black Theater workshop. Rhodessa received the Theatre Practitioner Award presented by Theater Communications Group during July 2015. The award recognizes “a living individual whose work in the American theatre has evidenced exemplary achievement over time and who has contributed significantly to the development of the larger field.” During January 2015, Rhodessa was a Visiting Professor at St. Mary’s College in Moraga, California.
In 2013, The Office of Mayor Edwin M. Lee and the San Francisco Art Commission presented the 2013 Mayor’s Art Award to Rhodessa Jones, for her “lifetime of artistic achievement and enduring commitment to the role of the arts in civic life.”
Rhodessa’s published works include: A Beginner’s Guide to Community-Based Arts, New Village Press; Imagining Medea: Rhodessa Jones and Theater for Incarcerated Women, The University of North Carolina Press; and Colored Contradictions: An Anthology of Contemporary African-American Plays (“Big Butt Girls, Hard-Headed Women”), Penguin Group. Rhodessa’s groundbreaking method for working with disenfranchised populations has just been published in the book Black Acting Methods: Critical Approaches, © 2017—Routledge, “Black Acting Methods seeks to offer alternatives to the Euro-American performance styles that many actors find themselves working with.”
Yary Livan
Yary Livan is a surviving master of traditional Cambodian ceramics and kiln building, which date back to the sixth century. His work draws on a rich heritage including influences from ancient imperial Khmer kiln sites such as Angkor Wat, and incorporates traditional Cambodian imagery and relief carving. His ceramic pieces are highly regarded for their historical integrity and artistic merit, and have been displayed in exhibits throughout the United States and abroad.
Born in Battambang Province, Cambodia, Livan began his studies at the Royal University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh in 1971, where he majored in ceramics, but also trained as a sculptor, painter, and architectural designer. When the Khmer Rouge seized power in 1975, artists and intellectuals were persecuted. Having eluded the Pol Pot regime and after enduring many hardships, he came to the United States in 2001. Livan is recognized as one of only three master ceramists to have survived the genocide, and is the only one known to be living in the U.S. He resides in Lowell, Massachusetts.
Since immigrating to the United States, Livan has led numerous workshops, completed a three-year residency with Harvard University, and taught at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. Not only has the artist taught students traditional Cambodian and contemporary sculpture, but he has worked with a group of young artists to create bas relief ceramic tiles for a community park in Fields Corner Dorchester, Massachusetts, as well as painting a mural for Ronan Park, also in Dorchester. In 2005, he was honored with a National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award from the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. Other awards include a Mima Weissmann Award for the Study of Ceramic Arts (Ceramics Program, Office for the Arts, Harvard University) and a Massachusetts Cultural Council Traditional Arts Apprenticeship. Livan has also worked as a master mold maker and modeler for the New England Sculpture Service Foundry, and in 2010, was an Instructor for Arts Incentive Program, United South End Settlements. In 2012, he received a prestigious Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship and became an adjunct professor at Middlesex Community College, where in addition to ceramics, he teaches watercolor and oil painting.
At the same time, in the summer of 2012, Livan collaborated with his friend and fellow master ceramist to build a traditional wood-fired kiln on the grounds of the Lowell National Historic Park. This smokeless kiln is able to achieve effects not possible in a gas-fired kiln, which further enhances Livan’s ability to reclaim traditional Khmer ceramics and enables him to pass on a legacy of art making and traditional artistic techniques to younger generations and posterity.
On October 01, 2015, Livan received the Award from the National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowships, recognizing his artistic excellence and supporting his significant contribution to traditional arts and culture. As a NEA National Heritage Fellow, he continues to teach and exhibit regionally and nationally.
Ramona Peters
Ramona (Nosapocket) Peters is a member of the Bear Clan within the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and lives in Mashpee, Massachusetts. She is the founder and current president of the Native Land Conservancy, Inc.
Ramona has served her tribe as the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer and NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, 1990) Director, Tribal Museum Director, as a Traditional Chief’s Councilor and a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Woman’s Medicine Society. Most of her work has focused on repatriation, indigenous rights, land and cultural preservation, and many other endeavors to expand the Wampanoag identity. Ramona has assisted numerous Native students with their theses and dissertations.
Ramona has been deemed a Wampanoag Culture Keeper by her peers. She holds a Masters of Applied Human and Community Development from the California School of Professional Psychology and a Bachelor’s degree in Education from the University of Arizona. She also revived the traditional forms of Wampanoag pottery after some 150 years of dormancy. She is a recipient of the First People’s Fund “Community Spirit Award”.
Two of her recent 2023 pieces have been acquired through commission by the National Museum of the American Indian and the Massachusetts Museum of Fine Arts. Image courtesy of the First People’s Fund.