Smithsonian American Art Museum
Sightlines: Chinatown and Beyond
September 7, 2024 – November 30, 2025
Sightlines highlights the imprint of Asian Americans on the physical and cultural terrain of Washington, D.C.
Presented by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, the exhibition is on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and installed in a gallery overlooking G Street NW in D.C.’s historical Chinatown neighborhood. The Sightlines exhibition provides glimpses into the complexity and depth of Asian American connections to the city. The featured stories highlight examples of cultural production that interpret elements of Chinese, Korean, and Javanese/Indonesian heritage or express coalitional Asian American and BIPOC identities. These are presented in displays of artwork, material culture, images, and other graphic material drawn from Smithsonian collections as well as shared by local lenders, including community members and repositories such as the D.C. History Center and the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University.
Three works of art anchor the exhibition and are positioned at the center of the gallery. Each corresponds to a location in Chinatown, which is indicated on a floor map. These pieces guide visitors to the surrounding walls to explore the broader exhibition themes of Making Place, Transforming Tradition, and Visualizing Identity. The anchor objects underscore interconnected stories, inviting visitors to see D.C. differently and, in the process, gain new insights into the contributions of Asian Americans to the nation’s capital.
Interested in booking a tour of Sightlines: Chinatown and Beyond for your students, community members, or professional group? Please send an inquiry to APAC-Education@si.edu.
Friendship Archway, Streetscape at Seventh and H Streets NW, 1985–86. AEPA Architects Engineers PC
