Celebrate Baltimore’s Charles North – Station North – neighborhood’s constantly evolving identities as a Koreatown, arts district and creative hub. Co-produced by Asian Arts & Culture Center and Central Baltimore Partnership.

Schedule of Events:

May 2, 2025

Asia North 2025
5 – 9 p.m.
16 W. North Avenue, Motor House and The Club Car

Baltimore Chinese Dragon Team
Baltimore Chinese Dragon Team
Celebrate the kick-off of Asia North 2025. Meet guest curator Phaan Howng and the artists featured in Exceeds Expectations. Spend the evening learning Bollywood moves, take in the guzheng (Chinese zither) with a Baltimore twist, parade with dragon dancers, and dance to conscious hip hop, drum lines, drag queens, and more! Featuring performances from Qi Yu, Stepping Stones, Utpalasia, Mr Mrs Boots, Spike Yee & Proper, and the Baltimore Chinese School Dragon Dancers. Savor dishes provided by the Baltimore Xiamen Sister City Committee. Hosted by Eva Barrie, Asia North 2025 performance curator.

May 3, 2025

Historic Koreatown & Landmarks + Meet the Authors, Ginger and Frances Park

Meet at 16 W. North Avenue
REGISTER on Eventbrite

Frances Park and Ginger Park

Join a guide for a walking tour of the Charles North neighborhood’s historical Koreatown landmarks and favorite food spots. Then, meet the award-winning authors Ginger Park and Frances Park. The sister team will share their love of writing as well as read from their newest children's book SUKA'S FARM inspired by their father's boyhood during Japanese occupied Korea. SUKA'S FARM was selected for NBC4's 4 Your Reading series hosted by Jummy Olabanji. The presentation will also include a fun and interactive Q&A session for adults and children, and a chance to win copies of their books. The presentation will end with an author book signing and reception. Visit Ginger and Frances at www.parksisters.com Hosted by the Baltimore Changwon Sister City Committee and Korean American Foundation – Greater Washington.

Click here to Register

May 8, 2025

NAAAP Baltimore 2nd Thursdays AAPI Meet-Up
6 – 8 p.m.
16 W. North Avenue
$15 NAAAP Members, $20 Non-Members
Registration Required by May 5

Celebrate artists who are exhibiting in the EXCEEDS EXPECTATIONS exhibit while bringing people together for Asian Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Your registration fee includes food from Chef Sylva Lin of Culinary Architecture Market+Kitchen. The menu includes handcrafted Baked Bao Snack Boxes that include Chinese Stuffed Milk Buns (Minced Pork or Shiitake Mushroom Mapo Tofu); Brown Crispy Potato Chips; and Coconut Mango Macaroons. The Second Thursdays program brings together APIA professionals to socialize, hear from local leaders, and learn about upcoming events and opportunities. We also celebrate local businesses owned by APIAs, especially restaurants, as anchors of the regional APIA community.  

Exhibition
Veiled Forms
Opening Reception: Friday, May 9, 6 – 10 p.m.
Exhibition: Saturday, May 10 – Friday, May 16
By appointment and 5 – 9 p.m. on Saturday, May 10 and Friday, May 16
Exhibit Closing + Fundraiser: Saturday, May 17, 3 – 6 p.m.
Bogus Gallery

This exhibition highlights the work of local Asian artists Lika Yuyun Su, Winter Dior Hart, Kei Ito, Dooree Kang, and Lucia Shuyu Li, each engaging with the tactile and ephemeral qualities of texture, light, color, and form. Through intricate layers, coverings, and floating elements, their works invite viewers to explore the interplay of materiality and meaning, as traditional and contemporary elements merge.

Lika Su’s sculptures, with their meticulous textures and layered forms, evoke a sense of both groundedness and lightness, blurring the line between permanence and fragility. Winter Hart’s vibrant use of color and unconventional materials creates surfaces rich in texture, where layers and coverings hint at hidden histories. Kei Ito’s photographic works are imbued with light and shadow, using transparency and layering to echo themes of memory and intergenerational trauma. Dooree Kang’s installations and videos evoke a sense of floating and impermanence, with translucent materials and delicate compositions that capture the fleeting nature of time. Lucia Li’s digital works play with fluid color and form, creating a dialogue between the digital and physical, where lightness and depth coexist in tension.

The exhibition itself becomes a layered experience, offering viewers multiple modes of engagement. From the opening performance, which enacts the fluid interplay of light and form in real time, where layers of meaning will be uncovered through dialogue, each event invites reflection on how surface and depth, covering and revealing, shape our understanding of both art and life. A Baltimore Kawasaki Sister Cities Committee fundraiser will further activate the space, fostering a community that supports and uplifts local and international l artists. Through this thoughtful exploration of form and texture, this exhibition transcends the visual to create a sensory experience. It celebrates the lightness of floating forms and the weight of layered histories, offering viewers a space to reflect on how cultural and personal narratives are woven into the fabric of contemporary art.

Curated by Liz Faust and Michael Young.

May 10, 2025

Discover & Dine
Asia North Kamayan Feast
6 – 8:30 p.m.
The Club Car
TICKETS: $60, purchase by May 6

Experience Asia North's annual communal Filipino feast where food is artfully laid out atop banana leaves in the middle of long banquet tables. "Kamay" literally translates to "hand" in this traditional Filipino practice of eating with your hands. Enjoy specialty cocktails by Club Car while Asia North featured artist Thea Canlas talks about her food-centered artwork. Participating caterers include Frisco Baltimore and Barkada Breads.

Discover & Dine
Kantahan at Pulutan: Karaoke & Pinoy Food Trucks
9 p.m. – 1 a.m.
The Club Car
FREE REGISTRATION COMING SOON

Karaoke all night long Asia North-style, featuring Filipino song selections plus other Asian song lists. Satisfy your late-night cravings with pulutan (small bites/snacks) from local Filipino food trucks which you can bring into The Club Car. Kamayan Feast attendees enjoy a discount on drinks at the bar.

May 14, 2025

Workshop
Imposter Syndrome & Authenticity
6 – 8 p.m.
16 W. North Avenue

A fun and creative exploration that includes sharing, writing and art-making for APIMEDIA folks and friends. Facilitated by Sel Hwahng (Towson University Assistant Professor of Women, Gender, Health, and Sexuality) and Rieko Chacey (Multimedia artist and Towson University faculty of Graphic Design & Interactive Media).

May 20, 2025

Conversation and Gathering
Acknowledge and Reframe - Engaging with Asian American History
6 – 8 p.m.
16 W. North Avenue

Engage with the history of Asian American racialization and activism. Interact with history, art, and each other to imagine how to amplify and sustain the Asian American experience. Facilitated by Paul J. Koh (Towson University Professor of Education) and Phyllis Zhu (artist and therapist). Co-sponsored by the Johns Hopkins Medicine Asian & Pacific Islander Employee Resource Group & Allies.

May 24, 2025

Improv Comedy
A++ Improv Team jam and show

Baltimore Improv Group
Improv Jam (5 – 6 p.m.): join us on stage and make up comedy with us! The performers of A++ will lead you through improv games and exercises. No experience required - just come as you are!
Show (7 – 8 p.m.): Awkward family vacations? Weird parental advice? Total chaos at work? Drop the tea, and we'll turn it into fast, ridiculous, totally unplanned comedy. No tiger moms, no math jokes, just real stories and big laughs.

May 28, 2025

SIP & PAINT
"Still Life: Longing"
6 – 8 p.m.
Motor House West Bay

In this Asia North event, artist Thea Canlas will guide participants through painting a still life as part of her series of works titled "Still Life: Longing", on view in this year's Asia North exhibition, EXCEEDS EXPECTATIONS, curated by Phaan Howng. Thea's piece, “Still Life: Longing,” is a series of installations of locally sourced Pilipino foods as an homage to the immigrant experience of searching for home (or close enough to home) in unfamiliar terrain.

Participants will be guided through painting a still life created by the artist, using acrylic paint on canvas and your choice of either a glass or bottle of wine. No experience necessary—this is a beginner-friendly class! Tickets can be purchased at the Motor House website:

Single w/ Drink $35 +$.88 ticket fee
Single Ticket w/ Wine Bottle $53 + $1.33 ticket fee
Couples Ticket w/ Wine Bottle $80 + $2 ticket fee

Prices include wine and materials and support Motor House and the artist. Prices include wine and materials and support Motor House and the artist. Additional food and beverages are available for purchase at The Showroom.

May 29, 2025

Performance
Gugaknori: Korean Fusion Music from Korea
7 p.m.
Mobtown Ballroom & Café
Sponsored by Korean Cultural Center Washington, D.C.

Gugaknori blends traditional Korean rhythms with various music genres like rock, pop, jazz, and electronic, creating a unique musical experience. Their performance conveys the emotions of ‘han’ and ‘heung,’ expressing Korean sentiment through music. The group creatively presents the essence of Korean music by combining the sorrow of the haegeum, the passion of the geomungo, the joyful voice of the byeongchang, lively Korean drumming, the guitar's distinctive sound, and dance.

May 31, 2025

Workshop
The Art of Indigo with Rosa Chang
10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Blue Light Junction

Closing Event
Asia North 2025
5 – 9 p.m.
16 W. North Avenue and Motor House
Celebrate the conclusion of Asia North 2025. Congratulate the artists featured in EXCEEDS EXPECTATIONS. Enjoy performances by Chinese guqin player Ilsa Yin, uplifting music from The Fictionals, party with Indie-Pop-Funk band Silversity, and close out the evening dancing to DJ Hon Jao.

Date: May 2 - 31, 2025

Location: Various Venues in Baltimore, MD

Click here for more Information