High Five Festival in San Francisco Chinatown

Submitted by the Event Organizer

Edge on the Square (Edge) presents High Five: Exploring the Elemental Forces of Chinatown, its 3rd Annual Contemporary Art Festival on Saturday, September 7, 2024. This year’s theme centers on the five elements: Earth 土, Fire 火, Metal 金, Water 水, and Air 气, and invites us to uncover new realms of Chinatown through the prism of these fundamental forces.​​​​

Five Chinatown alleyways and streets will represent an element that is interpreted by artists in their activations:

​Earth 土 | Grant Avenue
Fire 火 | Waverly Place
Metal 金 | Ross Alley
Water 水 | Wentworth Place
Air 气 | Joice Street

The elements, symbolic of essential life forces in the universe, have profoundly influenced philosophy, sciences, medicine, military strategy, music, and many other fields. Working with Head Curator Candace Huey and esteemed guest curators, Aay Preston-Myint, Colin Kimzey and Trisha Lagaso Goldberg, the artists are prompted to explore how the elements address and illuminate diverse facets of history, culture and sense of place. ​​​

​​​​The festival artists are guided by questions: Why are the elements compelling? What is social about the elements, if at all? And how can exploring the elements reveal new dimensions of Chinatown and broader Asian American and Asian diasporic cultural experiences? Artists interpret the five elements through personal and collective narratives expressed via rituals, fantasies, social practices, mysticism, mythologies, and multimedia artforms including film, video projections, augmented reality, performance, sound, and dance.

Disclaimer: Please double check event information with the event organizer as events can be canceled, details can change after they are added to our calendar, and errors do occur.