Visible Polylogue
2025-26: Stories have the power to teach, connect, and inspire. In Orange County – a county with 3 million residents – there are countless stories that have this impact. This includes stories of immigrant and refugee people who contribute, innovate, and serve our communities. To make VISIBLE these voices and stories, The Expression Project will host an interactive art showcase on May 2nd, in coordination with Newsong Church and the OC Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs. This showcase will highlight immigrant and refugee voices through three installations of works by artists Susan Y. Shimazu, Ritchie Kong, and Teresa Huang.
The goal of this showcase is to educate the faith-based church and non-profit communities in Orange County about the struggles and authentic identities of immigrants and refugees. Activities will include a video display that tells the story of Asian American refugees, an interactive station where participants can write notes of encouragement to immigrant students, and a printing station with optotypes that allow visitors to read the “I am” and “I am not” statements from Orange County immigrants and refugees and create their own custom optotype chart. The projected outcome is to reduce misperceptions of immigrants in Orange County, provide a space where immigrants and refugees can safely share their experiences, and equip service providers with tools to increase empathy and understanding in the faith communities through artistic interactive experience.
2023-24: The VISIBLE Polylogue is a project focused on designing a curriculum that will enable participants to learn about Social Practice Art and its use in promoting change in urban and minority communities. Christians will be involved in a dialogue with local community organizations to learn about needs within the Asian American communities using art based workshops. The curriculum will provide training on what Social Practice is and give examples of different social practice artists and their work in various mediums. The curriculum will also provide participants with the opportunity to learn different tools that can be used to communicate messages artistically.
A third-generation Japanese American, Susan grew up near Los Angeles. Her work includes curating, performing, film production, and teaching public health and ethnic studies. She hopes to raise awareness of hate and discrimination, with public collaboration through digital art. Susan has taught at CalState Fullerton for the last 10 years.
The Collaborative Seed Grant initiative of the Ministry in the City HUB invites artists, pastors, youth workers, churches, and/or faith-based organizations to partner together on a seed or start-up project that integrates the arts or a creative practice with ministry and community. Our inaugural cohort of CS grantees include artists from Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, and New York, partnering with local churches and community organizations.
The new HUB Local Gatherings initiative supports the coordination of neighborhood or citywide gatherings by a network member to connect with other Christian leaders around a topic of inquiry, encouragement, and support related to ministry in the city. The gatherings are topical, contextual, and consider sustained engagement between or beyond the meetings themselves.
Lord I ask for you to be present in the high schools and middle schools in Covina and provide your presence to intervene in the drug addiction and fentanyl crisis in our schools. I pray that our students would be able to lead others in resisting the temptation of drugs and find joy in their extracurricular activities that don’t involve drugs.