The W.O.W. Project is a women, queer, trans and youth-led community initiative using art and activism to grow our community’s capacities for self-determination and nurture NYC Chinatown’s creative culture in a time of rapid change.
Through a decade of community organizing, we have identified the critical needs to build an intergenerational cross-class coalition to confront the carceral expansion in Chinatown and beyond. As the August 2027 deadline to close Rikers Island approaches, New York City continues to package jail expansion alongside long-overdue infrastructure improvements in working-class immigrant neighborhoods while using the creative class to mask this state violence and neglect.
Yet, to take root is different from to endure. Self-determination asks us to refuse the terms given by an extractive unjust system, and to build new conditions grounded in reciprocity and shared abundance. Through public programs, storefront exhibitions, and intergenerational dialogue, we ask what it means to stay put in Chinatown while imagining new ways of living together. Our 10th anniversary summer series reflects this journey: from a community dialogue series, harkening back to our shop talk beginnings, to youth showcases, artist projects, and gatherings around food and storytelling that honor how working-class immigrant communities sustain one another.
As we enter our second decade, we invite our community to invest in the next chapter of this work. This campaign will support two major initiatives:
- an $80,000 public art project, marking the five-year anniversary of our In the Future mural, exploring cultural lineage, safety, and abolition
- a $20,000 youth leadership fellowship, marking the nine-year anniversary of our flagship youth program Resist, Recycle, Regenerate (RRR), supporting two emerging organizers and cultural workers selected through a participatory process to activate programs addressing cross-class solidarity and abolition in Chinatown.
Like all that has come before us, this future too must be collectively built. We invite you to join us, to invest in a future in Chinatown, where care is abundant, power is shared, and our communities can thrive on our own terms.
