Asian Women Giving Circle Awards $94,000 in Grants
NEW YORK, NY—A theater work about the lives, grueling labor, and hopes of homecare workers created and performed by the workers themselves, a Harlem-based arts residency in memory of Yuri Kochiyama’s praxis of radical hospitality, and a first-ever fashion showcase featuring wearable art by Bangladeshi and other South Asian immigrant women, many of them survivors of domestic violence in the Bronx are among the recipients of this year’s $8,000 AWGC grants, awarded annually to support NYC-based projects at the intersection of arts and activism led by women and gender-expansive artists.
The artist Pyaari Azaadi is the inaugural recipient of a grant from the Shalini Somayaji Love and Justice Fund, named in honor of our much-missed AWGC sister and steering committee member who passed away earlier this year.
“This new grant honors artists and projects who reflect Shalini’s gentle warmth, groundedness, and care for others—and her fierce defense of the vulnerable and marginalized in the face of injustice,” said AWGC co-founder Hali Lee. “We thank Shalini’s family and friends for carrying on our legacy and honor Pyaari for her community-driven arts practice.”
The 2026 AWGC grantees are:
Adhikaar | Built by Mothers, Led by Youth
An intergenerational storytelling project centered in the Queens Nepali-speaking immigrant and refugee community where youth will document lessons from immigrant mothers, highlighting shared values and resilience. The narratives will be shared on Adhikaar’s website and social media.
Maya Han | Edgemore Farm Works | “Miss Pat Chin”
A 20-25 minute documentary portrait and tribute to Pat the “Godmother of Reggae” Chin, the trailblazing co-founder of Queens NY-based VP Records, the world’s largest independent Caribbean music label. At 89, she is still going strong as a DJ and the reigning matriarch of NY Reggae music, who, for over six decades has been the bridge to global access and appreciation of Jamaican reggae and dancehall music. The film will integrate indie and vérité film techniques, interviews, and archival photos and film from Ms. Chin’s personal collection.
Flushing Workers Center Inc. | Untitled Theater Work
A theater production that showcases the talents of a theater group formed four years ago by immigrant women workers representing all trades and ages to tell the stories of their own lives, their struggles, and organizing work. The group will write, produce and perform a short skit about homecare workers, who are mostly older women of color, leading a citywide movement to end their grueling 24-hour workday and to protest their brutal work conditions and wage theft. The play will be staged for the public, recorded, and used as an organizing tool.
Laal NYC | Threads of Resistance
Laal’s first fashion showcase, centering Bangladeshi and South Asian immigrant women, many of them survivors of domestic violence, and using handloom techniques including nakshi kantha, stitching and embroidery to transform personal and collective stories into wearable art. The work will be presented in a public runway event with live demos and interactive workshops challenging cultural erasure, social isolation and economic marginalization through traditional craft as both artistic expression and a strategy for social and economic justice.
Michelle Rocqet | Musical Theatre Factory | “Youngmee”
An original full-length musical about a Korean-American family that relocates from LA to rural Colorado after a devastating loss. As the town’s time capsule mirrors their own fractured lineage, the question is: What happens when history disappears, both personal and collective? The grant will fund a public concert reading with a full band, featuring bluegrass, folk, and country with Korean musical traditions, advancing “Youngmee” toward a full production.
Prisca Choe | COVERS: Music, Migration, and Memory of the Korean Diaspora
COVERS by MP3 is a multimedia storytelling project that explores the immigration stories of the Korean diaspora through the music that comforted people as they built home. By recreating meaningful album covers with participants as the featured artist, producing intergenerational documentary films in collaboration with elders and younger family or community members, and creating workshops and participatory community events, the project uses music as a bridge to preserve personal histories and expand our collective memory of Korean American migration and belonging.
Pyaari Azaadi | Pen + Brush | Xenana Projects (Shalini Somayaji grant recipient)
Xenana Projects is an intergenerational feminist creative community anchored at Pen + Brush in Manhattan and Hicksville, Long Island that provides gathering space for community-driven workshops, book clubs, and artistic pop-ups and conversations centered on art, queerness, caste, and religious nationalism. The project founder and artist Pyaari Azaadi will develop print editions and wearable sculptural works to move art beyond the gallery walls into community life.
Neelu Bhuman and Reena Shah | The Film Collaborative | Chiraku (Wing)
A feature-length documentary following Adam Harry, a young Muslim trans man pursuing his dream of becoming a commercial pilot despite India’s discriminatory aeromedical regulations, tracing his journey from activist to near-qualified pilot in a final race against time and money—blending intimate vérité, lyrical interludes, and Adam’s own social media reels. The grant will be used for post-production in NYC with LGBTQ+ and Asian American team.
Ruoyun Chen | Uniondocs | “People's Republic of Letters”
Across China, the United States, and Australia, five Chinese millennial poets come of age from their twenties into their thirties as lockdowns, migration, and political divides reshape their lives. As the dream of a borderless world fades, they turn to poetry to sustain connection, navigate loss, and find new ways to belong. Rooted in New York’s diasporic communities, the film uses poetry as a tool of cultural survival and collective witnessing, transforming private grief and silenced speech into shared language and civic imagination.
Liz Sargent | Women Making Movies | “Take Me Home” events
“Take Me Home” is a feature film that tenderly traces the intersecting experiences of an Asian adoptee and a cognitively disabled young woman, Anna, as she navigates independence, caregiving, and the search for a world where she can thrive. This grant will go towards the film’s community impact campaign to eventize screenings and host community centered events to reach Asian adoptee, caregiver, and disability communities.
Yuri Kochiyama Solidarity Project | Arts-Based Residency
The Yuri Kochiyama Solidarity Residency carries on Yuri Kochiyama’s praxis of radical hospitality by providing three-week residencies for educators, scholars, artists and organizers. Residents are offered a safe and conveniently located apartment in Central Harlem to live and work while working on a writing, research, arts,education, history or community-based project centered in social justice and solidarity. The AWGC grant will be used to fund an arts and activism-based YKSP residency in 2027.
This year we are delighted to award two $3,000 “boost” grants to:
Esy Casey | Uniondocs | | “Outside of the Mind” (2022 AWGC grantee)
‘Outside of the Mind’ is a film and video installation taking its name from the Latin roots of the word ‘dementia’. A scientific and poetic chronicle of the breakdown of the brain, body and heart, the observations of a daughter are paired with a continually transforming image of her mother, as a girl in the Philippines, a brilliant chemist in Chicago, and a passionate naturalist throughout. A reflection on love, humor, loss, and ultimately a transformation that expands connection with each other, the self, and the outside world.
Stephanie Shin and Danielle Wu | Think!Chinatown | Untitled (Teeny Tiny)
An original movement based work choreographed by Korean American artist Stephanie Shin, performed and based on a 4’ x 4’ foot platform that expresses feelings commonly reduced to insignificance within the AAPI community. Utilizing gesture, partnerwork, and humor, the piece responds and is presented in relation to “De Minimis,” a group exhibition curated at Think!Chinatown by Danielle Wu.
The Asian Women Giving Circle, the first and largest giving circle in the nation led by Asian American women, funds art projects that contribute to cultural and political change created by Asian American women artists and activists in New York City. AWGC is fiscally sponsored by the Ms. Foundation for Women. www.asianwomengivingcircle.org
