Flora 5000
The 2022 SFMOMA Soapbox Derby at McLaren Park
San Francisco, CA2022
Flora 5000 is an inflatable vehicle from a post-apocalyptic future when planet earth is no longer habitable for plant life due to global warming. Macro Waves, a team of mad botanists, travels back to earth in the Flora 5000 on a mission to repopulate the planet with plant life. Flora 5000 serves as a traveling greenhouse preservation robot, scaling the globe, conserving plant species and seed life, and aiding in the earth's reforestation.
SFMOMA’s Soapbox Derby returned to McLaren Park for the first time in more than 40 years! The original artists’ derbies from the 1970s are legendary events in our history. Between the two races in 1975 and 1978, the museum commissioned cars and trophies from more than 200 artists — including Ruth Asawa, Robert Arneson, Ant Farm, Viola Frey, Mike Henderson, Mary Lovelace O’Neal, Richard Shaw, and Carlos Villa — and thousands gathered to watch the races unfold.
SFMOMA’s Soapbox Derby returned to McLaren Park for the first time in more than 40 years! The original artists’ derbies from the 1970s are legendary events in our history. Between the two races in 1975 and 1978, the museum commissioned cars and trophies from more than 200 artists — including Ruth Asawa, Robert Arneson, Ant Farm, Viola Frey, Mike Henderson, Mary Lovelace O’Neal, Richard Shaw, and Carlos Villa — and thousands gathered to watch the races unfold.
Additional Link:
SFMOMA’s Soapbox Derby
A Cinematic Schematic of Chinatown Resilience
Representing Chinatown Group Exhibit co-curated with the Center for Asian American Media and SFMOMA
SFMOMA, Koret Education Center
Interactive Mural / 38 ft x 10 ft
2022
A Cinematic Schematic of Chinatown Resilience is an interactive mural commissioned by SFMOMA’s Koret Education Center that honors intergenerational experiences and Pan-Asian solidarity within and around San Francisco’s Chinatown. By examining a selection of independent films presented by The Center for Asian American Media (CAAM) over the past 40 years, this mural weaves together images and movements of resiliency captured through the lens of joy, intergenerational stories, placemaking, and community building.
This work celebrates the role of cinematography in archiving histories, reframing our narratives, and shaping our own cultural identities as a collective diaspora. This mural utilizes interactive sensor-reactive technology to activate specific thematic areas of design across the span of the mural. Visitors can hover their hands over specified areas and experience Chinatown through audio-visual content. When the sensor gets triggered, colored spotlights slowly highlight areas of the mural, activating background audio and immersing visitors in archival sounds that built the foundation of what Chinatown is today.
This mural pays tribute to the legacy of cinematic accomplishments across the selected films presented in this mural. Visitors are encouraged to experience the following films in the original format:
Forever Chinatown, James Q. Chan
- Chinatown Shorts: You Are Here, James Q. Chan
- Fall of the I-Hotel, Curtis Choy
- Chinatown Rising, Josh, and Harry Chuck
- Chinatown, Felicia Lowe
Additional Links
(Community Residency SFMOMA)
breath.io
Multi-Sensory Installation
SWIM Gallery
San Francisco, CA
June 5 - June 17, 2022
As featured artists for APICC’s United States of Asian America Festival, Macro Waves presents Breath.io, a multi-sensory installation that serves as a futuristic community healing space. Through a sensory experience, breath.io celebrates the power of collective care through the practice of guided breathwork. Breath.io features acupuncturist, Paolo Flores Chico in a guided microcosmic orbit breath experimental video collaboration. The project will have an opening reception on Sunday, June 5th, featuring a Guided Movement with Jin Lee Baobei, and will close out the project on Friday, June 17 with Breathwork for Collective Consciousness with Chanel Durley and a live sound performance with Sharmi Basu.
Breath.io follows a science fiction narrative in an alternative future where the breath is revered as sacred. Visitors are invited inside the space to participate in a futuristic meditative breath experience. Entering the installation, visitors are greeted by an instructional video of the microcosmic breath made in collaboration with Paolo Flores Chico. An interactive light sculpture in the center of the installation space leads the visitors through a collective breath exercise. Participants will be encouraged to breathe together in synchronization, symbolizing community union as a form of radical healing. This light sculpture synchronized with the audio-guided meditation will slowly fade bright to dim, mimicking human breath.
By introducing breath meditation within the framework of art, we aim to embrace collective care as an essential aspect of our daily lives. Our goal is to create accessible and free space for people to focus on alternative mental health modalities and frameworks for healing justice.
Additional Links
APICC USAAF 2022 Festival
Press Kit
Altar-n8 Realm x AAIFF
RENDERING REAL - AAIFF
New Art City
2022
Interactive virtual gallery
The Asian American International Film Festival (AAIFF) celebrated it's retrospective with REAL: Explorations of Asian American and Asian Diasporic Archives, an online virtual exhibition featuring 11 artists and 4 organizations selected as part of the new media category. The new media category is an extension and expansion of the AAIFF’s dedication to support Asian and Asian diasporic artists working with newer forms of media and the moving image that fall out of the bounds of traditional cinema. AAIFF looks to these artists to understand how storytelling can take shape in newer forms fit for the digital age.
Macro Waves was invited to partiicpate with the project Altar-n8 Realm. With this project we had the opportunity to transform the experience into a virtual interactive gallery experience. The original Altar-n8 Realm Project debuted at the 24th Annual United States of Asia America Festival: Forging Our Futures, presented in partnership with the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center in 2021. This project featured conversational interviews with five Chinatown-based small businesses, Chinatown Kite Shop, Li Ly’s Hair Salon, Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory, Little Paris, and Washington Bakery and Restaurant.
Macro Waves members, Anum Awan, Dominic Cheng, Robin Birdd David, and Jeffrey Yip, in collaboration with artists Alice Yuan Zhang and Qianqian Ye created AR art altar installations inspired by conversations with each business owner. In collaboration with Broad Target, The Altar-n8 Realm Project released a mini-documentary series examining the diverse lived experiences of these five Chinatown business owners and their journey before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Additional Links
Experience the virtual gallery
Altar-n8 Realm
Outdoor Augmented Reality Art Tour
San Francisco, Chinatown
Exhibition On View: May 30, 2021 - August 31, 2021
The Altar-n8 Realm Project was an outdoor augmented reality (AR) art exhibition in support of small businesses in San Francisco’s Chinatown, honoring our ancestors through virtual offerings of food, prayer, and reflection. Viewers were welcome to experience the exhibition as an interactive walking art tour of SF Chinatown using smartphones. In response to the global pandemic and the current hate crimes against Asian Americans, Altar-n8 Realm fostered recovery, resilience, and regeneration in the Chinatown community, by utilizing interactive technology as a form of storytelling, uplifting Chinatown voices in support of small businesses. Inspired by the Qingming Festival traditions, Altar-n8 Realm poses the question, “how can offerings form a spiritual bond between our ancestors and our present self?”
The Altar-n8 Realm Project debuted at the 24th Annual United States of Asia America Festival: Forging Our Futures, presented in partnership with the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center in 2021. This project featured conversational interviews with five Chinatown-based small businesses, Chinatown Kite Shop, Li Ly’s Hair Salon, Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory, Little Paris, and Washington Bakery and Restaurant.
Macro Waves members, Anum Awan, Dominic Cheng, Robin Birdd David, and Jeffrey Yip, in collaboration with artists Alice Yuan Zhang and Qianqian Ye created AR art altar installations inspired by conversations with each business owner. In collaboration with Broad Target, The Altar-n8 Realm Project released a mini-documentary series examining the diverse lived experiences of these five Chinatown business owners and their journey before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Altar-n8 Realm Project debuted at the 24th Annual United States of Asia America Festival: Forging Our Futures, presented in partnership with the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center in 2021. This project featured conversational interviews with five Chinatown-based small businesses, Chinatown Kite Shop, Li Ly’s Hair Salon, Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory, Little Paris, and Washington Bakery and Restaurant.
Macro Waves members, Anum Awan, Dominic Cheng, Robin Birdd David, and Jeffrey Yip, in collaboration with artists Alice Yuan Zhang and Qianqian Ye created AR art altar installations inspired by conversations with each business owner. In collaboration with Broad Target, The Altar-n8 Realm Project released a mini-documentary series examining the diverse lived experiences of these five Chinatown business owners and their journey before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
ONLINE EXPERIENCE
Recorded Video Tour
Altar-n8 Realm is an exhibition that brings the physical into the virtual world, providing a safe space for viewers to experience art outdoors and online. For those who cannot make the outdoor experience, we will be offering an online video recording of the AR experience.
︎ Access Augmented Reality Altars
Recorded Video Tour
Altar-n8 Realm is an exhibition that brings the physical into the virtual world, providing a safe space for viewers to experience art outdoors and online. For those who cannot make the outdoor experience, we will be offering an online video recording of the AR experience.
︎ Access Augmented Reality Altars
FILM FEATURE
Collaborators Broad Target directed a mini-documentary series highlighting the story of each particpating business and their relationship the rituals and traditions of Qingming Festival.
︎ Access Documentary Videos
Documentary Release
Collaborators Broad Target directed a mini-documentary series highlighting the story of each particpating business and their relationship the rituals and traditions of Qingming Festival.
︎ Access Documentary Videos
✨️ Collaborators & Contributors ✨️
Altar-n8 reimagines the art experience as a way to build community through technology, meaningful collaboration, and direct support towards a sustainable future for our communities. We partnered up with other BIPOC artists, designers and creative technologist to created AR art altar installations inspired by conversations with a diverse community of Chinatown-based small businesses.
ARTISTS
Anum Awan
Robin Birdd
Dominic Cheng
Amy Guan
Alexander Lim
Alice Yuan Zhang
Qianqian Ye
Jeffrey Yip
Anum Awan
Robin Birdd
Dominic Cheng
Amy Guan
Alexander Lim
Alice Yuan Zhang
Qianqian Ye
Jeffrey Yip
✨️Make a donation to the project ✨️
This project was funded by a small project grant and created with time and energy donated from our members and our collaborators. Please consider supporting the artists and small businesses involved in this project by visiting our Gofundme page.
Donations over $50 will be given a limited edition Altar-n8 Realm Zine that documents the AR exhibition.
For more informaiton about the project, please check out our Press Release.
