Belonging as the antidote to authoritarianism
Belonging is the sense of community, home, and agency. It is foundational to a functioning multiracial democracy.
Right now, belonging, and by extension, multiracial democracy, is under attack by powerful global political forces. They are leveraging fear to create division and capture control over civic life, politics, and the economy. In this time of monsters, we turn to artists to illuminate the pain of our past and present, and to offer visions of hope and connection.
Creative Catalysts
Art can be a critical catalyst for creating belonging. Art allows us to explore the particularity and uniqueness of individual and group experiences, while also connecting to the universal human condition: contradiction, joy, loss, challenge, overcoming, success, family, community, ugliness, and beauty.
The 2025 Creative Catalyst Fellows are doing exactly that. Working under the shared theme of Belonging, each fellow received $30,000 to produce art that connects to universal experience while exploring the broad, diverse, and complicated terrain of Asian American and Pacific Islander identity. They explore cultural memory, queerness, indigeneity, displacement, state violence, and decolonization. Their work creates the space and the preconditions for multiracial solidarity within and across identity, and beyond it. They bring us into belonging.
Nidhi Chanani
Creative Catalyst Fellow, Nidhi Chanani, is an award-winning author and illustrator whose work is rooted in spreading joy and fostering connection. By blending humor, emotion, and a touch of magic, Nidhi creates stories centered on South Asian and LGBTQ+ communities.
Creative Catalyst Project:
Nidhi’s project is a graphic essay that delves deeper into the term Asian American by weaving together its history with her personal experiences that are more expansive than any single identity can contain. Nidhi’s work speaks to the realities of being a person of color in America, where people are often reduced to one category, even as those categories are increasingly under threat, especially at a time when books are being banned in certain parts of the country, when racial data in the U.S. Census and diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts are being challenged. The project reminds us that the AAPI community is extraordinarily diverse: the majority of Asian Americans are immigrants, nearly two-thirds speak a language other than English, and experiences vary widely across ethnic and socioeconomic lines. At the same time, the work honors our long history of solidarity—of coming together to shape decades of advocacy—while reimagining something even more expansive and transformative for the organizing work ahead.
You can view the entire graphic essay here.
Sargylana Cherepanova
Creative Catalyst Fellow, Sargylana Cherepanova is a Siberian Indigenous Sakha artist who creates video games that center belonging, cultural memory, and decolonial imagination.
Creative Catalyst Project:
Sargylana’s project, Silis, is an interactive game rooted in her experience navigating two isolating environments: Siberia and the United States. SILIS intentionally immerses players in that isolation, echoing the loneliness many felt during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. But through gameplay, she transforms that loneliness into community empowerment. Ultimately, through her experience and decolonial lens, she envisions and creates a video game that reflects on the desire to see the world, where Sakha people and immigrants in general are treated as whole people – not just political subjects or postcolonial subalterns. At a moment when migrant lives are increasingly under threat, Sargylana’s work reminds us of our collective power. Through cultural preservation and community organizing, it affirms that indigeneity endures—and cannot be erased.
You can play the full game here.
Singha Hon
Creative Catalyst Fellow, Singha Hon is an NYC-based visual artist, illustrator, designer, and educator. Her work is deeply inspired by nature, dreams, community, and mythology, and the many threads that weave us all together.
Creative Catalyst Project:
Singha’s project, Shaped by the Mountains, is a series of portraits and an accompanying zine that tells the forgotten story of Tie Sing and the Chinese Americans who helped build the U.S. National Park Service. Through hand-drawn and painted illustrations, Singha reflects on a four-day backpacking trek in Yosemite with now-retired ranger Yenyen Chan. She paints a fuller picture of the story of Asian American naturalist leaders, while also elevating the importance of access to national parks and outdoor spaces, especially as recent federal cuts threaten public access and stewardship.
You can view a preview of the new work below.
Katie Quan
Creative Catalyst Fellow, Katie Quan is a filmmaker and Bay Area-based artist who creates work that honors AAPI communities and those who safeguard our histories.
Creative Catalyst Project:
Katie’s new documentary From the Ground Up explores the intersections of Asian American community, art, and history through the eyes of artists, historians, and archivists. The short film centers four Asian Americans shaping how history is remembered and shared: Leon Sun, Barnali Ghosh and Anirvan Chatterjee, and Caroline Cabading. Learning from our communities’ archives to inform the future is a strategy that’s paramount in our current climate. As we experience heightened media censorship in our country and the erasure of diverse and local media outlets due to the defunding of public media, investing in artists’ work like Katie’s reminds us that belonging is built and sustained by preserving and sharing our stories.
You can learn more about the film and future screenings here.
Tofu Riot
Creative Catalyst Fellow, Tofu Riot is a queer storyteller and animator that creates experimental, two-dimensional, hand-drawn animations and gender ambiguous, hybrid characters that weave in elements from their life and family.
Creative Catalyst Project:
Queer Catalyst, an animated short series, bringing the stories of AAPI LGBTQ+ activists in Houston, Austin, and Dallas to the forefront, illustrating their contributions to their community through organizing, advocacy, and creative expression. Each of Tofu Riot’s shorts includes hand-drawn animated characters portraying oral histories from queer Texans. The series reminds us that even amid relentless anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, queer communities continue to build beautiful, full lives. Continuing to support artists like Tofu Riot, whose work explores how we carve out pockets of belonging even in hostile environments, is essential for our communities to thrive.
You can watch the complete series here.