New Eighth Avenue arts festival builds bridges across cultures

A Space Gallery held its first Double Happiness Art Festival at 641 62nd St. in Sunset Park on Aug. 22, with an afternoon art market followed by an evening music party. Artists and creators from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds took part in the event, which aimed to bridge language and cultural divides in Eighth Avenue’s long-established Chinese community and bring different groups together through art and music. The name 双喜 (shuāngxǐ), or “double happiness,” is a familiar Chinese expression for two joys arriving together.

Jianfang Shi, a Chinese artist on Eighth Avenue and a co-founder and director of the festival, said he was born in China, came to New York three years ago and moved to Sunset Park a little more than three months ago.

“Whenever I go somewhere, I always have to bring art into the community where I live,” Shi said.

After settling in a Brooklyn neighborhood with a large Chinese population, Shi said he noticed that Eighth Avenue had relatively few events combining art, creativity and community exchange. He hopes Double Happiness can be a starting point for more events that strengthen the arts presence in the Chinese community.

Shi said he did not want the festival to be simply a “Chinese cultural event,” so organizers intentionally invited creators from different ethnic backgrounds, from the art vendors to the music performers.

“We want to bring diverse cultures in, while also including our Chinese traditions,” he said.

During the evening DJ program, an older member of the Chinese community played the erhu, a two-stringed Chinese bowed instrument, alongside modern pop and electronic music, bringing a traditional instrument into conversation with contemporary sounds.

Li Xianglong, head of A Space Gallery and another founder of the festival, said cross-cultural exchange was central to the event. He regularly works with artists from different backgrounds, but this was the first time he had brought his network and arts resources into the Chinese community. He said the first festival went well and gave him confidence to keep bringing more art and artists into the neighborhood.

“This is the first time doing something like this in the Chinese community. It feels a little like returning home,” Li said.

Among the 22 art vendors, Cookie Xia brought handmade jewelry centered on Xiang embroidery, a Hunan tradition known for silk thread, rich color gradations and lifelike, painterly detail. Xia said the embroidery has a history of more than 2,000 years and is listed as a national intangible cultural heritage in China.

Working with family members who run a studio in China, she is bringing the jewelry to the North American market and finding contemporary uses for Xiang embroidery beyond traditional clothing and accessories.

“We combine the foundation of Western jewelry with Chinese embroidery,” Xia said.

Another booth rooted in Chinese tradition was run by Wu Chengze, president of the New York Taoist Association, whose Taoist name is Wu Shanying. A Taoist priest, Wu offered fortune-telling at the festival and said she hopes the association can promote Taoist culture in New York while using cultural events to introduce more people to Chinese traditions.

With the festival taking place around the Qixi Festival, Wu prepared Qixi talismans, peach-blossom talismans traditionally associated with romance, and other relationship-related offerings. She also displayed protective wooden plaques and good-fortune plaques. In a fast-paced and stressful city like New York, she said, people need not only material things but also a space where the mind can “be still for a moment.”