Our Mission & Values
For Us:
PAPA’s membership is composed of people of Pan-Asian descent, which we understand to non-exhaustively include: Asian, Asian American, Southeast Asian, South Asian, Pacific Islander, Southwest Asian, Central Asian, Indo-Carribean, and multi-racial. As a community of many different cultures, ethnicities, and lived experiences coming together under a single banner, we care more about self-determination than trying to encompass the fullness of our community under a single perfect phrase. If you identify as Asian, we welcome you to join us. Beyond this shared racial identity, PAPA’s members are all involved in the Philadelphia-region as artists, administrators, technicians, curators, funders, academics, hobbyists, audience members, and more. PAPA centers its members in all of its activities.
By Us:
PAPA’s work is built from the expressed vision and needs of its members and implemented by the hands of its members, some as staff and many as volunteers. While other communities within Philadelphia are often invited into PAPA’s processes and participate in and benefit from PAPA’s work, our programming is always developed with the vision and needs of the membership at the core.
Beyond Us:
PAPA’s influence on the Philadelphia art scene and the city-at-large is both a natural and intentional extension of its activities in service of the membership. Through our work we create a wider understanding and appreciation of Asian and Asian American art and culture; support, advocate, and care for the wider Asian and Asian American communities in the Philadelphia region; and build solidarity in practice with Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and other communities of color in the fight for racial and economic justice.
We Value
Unapologetically Asian
We center the voices of artists of Pan-Asian descent and provide space and time to curate ambitious programming that celebrates this lineage, heritage, and political and personal history.
Coming as You Are
Whether you are involved in the arts as a full-time job or make art on the weekends; whether you are first or fifth generation; whether you are a parent, a college student, or an elder – we create spaces meant to hold the complex and intersecting identities of anyone in our community.
Wholistic Artist Care
Being an artist is so much more than the finished performance we see on stage. From residencies to movie nights to performance opportunities, workshops, potluck dinners, and more, we create programming that allows artists to thrive.
Following the Lead of our Members
Through community-engaged practices, our work and our processes are informed by the ever-shifting chorus of voices that make up our constituency and the larger community we serve.
Community Building
We want every event we produce to celebrate our community and nurture connections at both the professional and personal level. We embrace the feeling of sitting down together to eat whenever we gather.
Building our Own Systems
We cultivate a world where artists of Pan-Asian descent can tell their stories at any volume, in any language, with any textures they choose without fear or shame.
Collective Liberation
We support artistic work and organizational processes that break away from the “model minority” myth as well as any other effects of white supremacy. We organize against instances of oppression in our community, city, and world.
