On February 9, before the start of the Fire Horse year, frozen sprinkler pipes burst in the Flushing building owned by Asian American for Equality, where the art, archives, and cultural resources of the Asian American Arts Centre (AAAC) are housed under the custodianship of Think!Chinatown.

Archival materials were soaked. Works of art were exposed to water. Decades of irreplaceable cultural history are now at risk.

Emergency stabilization is underway, but the need is immediate. Conservation assessment, specialized treatment, transport, and proper storage require resources now. The window to prevent further deterioration is narrow. What we do in these weeks will determine what survives. Our team and volunteers have been working hard and diligently to ensure its safety.

AAAC’s collection represents over fifty years of Asian American artistic practice and community-building. Founded in 1974 by Robert Lee and Eleanor Yung, both emerging from the spirit of Basement Workshop, the AAAC was first established as the Asian American Dance Theatre, which later evolved into the centre in 1987. Over the decades, it produced exhibitions, performances, workshops, and educational programs that centered Asian American artists while always reaching out advocating change in our city, fostering cross-cultural solidarity with and across diverse communities.

This history lives in the collection. It is not static storage — it is living knowledge.

Today, AAAC is in a transformative mode. With the support of Think!Chinatown and Asian American for Equality, we are working toward becoming an intergenerational art research and community hub — a place where artists, students, scholars, and neighbors engage directly with works and archives. Our past programs offer a glimpse of this vision: initiatives like Stories of Chinatown brought immigrant middle school students together with Chinatown seniors to share life stories and create collaborative artworks. Through touch, dialogue, and shared making, together across generations history became embodied and alive.

That future depends on what we save now.

Your support will directly help:

Stabilize and conserve water-damaged artworks

Protect irreplaceable visual and archival materials

Secure safe temporary housing and proper care

Preserve public access for generations to come

This is not only recovery from a disaster. It is the preservation of cultural memory for the diversity of our city and for Asian American communities wherever they may be.

Team AAAC is acting with urgency and determination. In this Fire Horse year, we ask you to help us move swiftly — to safeguard what has been built and to ensure it continues forward.

Please give now!