Revitalizing Chinatown through community, friendship, resilience and art.
Sponsor a Panda
Explore, engage, and be inspired by the creativity and culture that this project celebrates.
Plan Your Visit
Your sponsorship helps ensure the continued success of this initiative, fostering community connections, and celebrating the vibrant spirit of Chinatown.
Pandas at SFO
Six of the pandas will be roaming the grounds of SFO airport, welcoming visitors and travelers to the Bay Area.
Learn more about them and their locations at: www.flysfo.com/pandas.
About the Project
The Painted Pandas Project is a transformative initiative by the Chinese Historical Society of America (CHSA) to revitalize Chinatown through art, community engagement, and cultural pride.
Chris Treggiari investigates how art can connect diverse communities. His work has been showcased internationally, including the Venice Biennale 2012 American Pavilion, and nationally at venues such as the Oakland Museum of California and the Berkeley Art Museum.
Sergio De La Torre has documented the ways citizens reinvent themselves in the cities they inhabit, showcasing his work in prominent venues such as the Istanbul Biennial, SFMOMA, and El Festival Internacional de Cine de Morelia. He is an Associate Professor at the University of San Francisco Art and Architecture Department.
Elaine Chu was born and raised in San Francisco. She graduated from the School of the Arts High School and continued to study drawing, painting, and art history at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. She is also the co-founder of the mural collaborative Twin Walls Mural Company alongside Marina Perez-Wong. Since 2013, they have painted over 30 murals together with various communities in the San Francisco Bay Area, including murals at SFMOMA, the Asian Art Museum, Chinese Historical Society of America, and Twitter HQ. Elaine’s murals are brightly colored and semi-realistic, using symbology related to nature, women, spirituality, justice, and community to manifest changes she wishes to see in the world.
Marina Perez-Wong has worked as a muralist and teaching artist throughout the Bay Area and New York City. Marina has created and collaborated on murals for a variety of communities and clients, including the San Francisco Giants, the Asian Art Museum, Google, Chase Stadium (for the Golden State Warriors), the San Francisco Arts Commission, and more. Her work is rooted in empowering communities and fostering creativity through vibrant and meaningful art.
Adrian Arias is an internationally acclaimed multidisciplinary artist whose work integrates visual arts, poetry, performance, and social justice. As a descendant of Peru’s ancient Moche culture, he channels his ancestral wisdom, especially the practice of interpreting dreams as a link between reality and imagination. This cultural heritage enriches his collaborations with artists and communities, creating works that express values of equality, freedom, peace, and beauty, convinced that creation is a constant transformative act.
Norman “Vogue” Chuck has been painting with aerosol for more than 35 years as a graffiti pioneer innovating spray can techniques. Vogue started as a youth painting Oakland’s train yards, learning to manipulate letter structures and styles. Today, he continues to evolve, blending dynamic color choices and mirrored reflections of the environment in his murals. Vogue’s work has been featured from Hawaii to Dubai, with clients such as Netflix, Red Bull, Converse, and the Golden State Warriors.
DJ Agana is an internationally acclaimed multi-dimensional contemporary artist. Rooted in her Venezuelan / Latinx heritage, her works converge large-scale murals and contemporary street art with imagery encompassing black and brown liberation, women’s empowerment, climate justice, and racial justice.
Keith “K-Dub” Williams is a visual artist, educator, and youth arts and sports activist. He has spent over a decade inspiring Bay Area youth to engage in building their communities. K-Dub was the director of the Oakland High School Visual Art Academy for eight years and has spearheaded efforts to build skate parks in Oakland, forging connections between local youth, city officials, and major brands. His work emphasizes empowerment and active participation in community development.
Nick Dong 董承濂 is a multidisciplinary artist known for his mixed-media sculptures, wearable art, and installations that combine technical mastery with immersive audience experiences. Utilizing sophisticated engineering, metalsmithing, dynamic movements, light, sound, and various interactive or situational strategies, Dong’s works invite full engagement and come to life through participant interaction.
Active since the 1990s, Dong has exhibited widely across Taiwan and the U.S. Notable showcases include the Cheongju International Craft Biennial (2003), Artitude 2008 at Kunstbanken Museum in Norway, and 40 Under 40: Craft Futures at the
Smithsonian American Art Museum (2012). His large-scale piece Patterns from Heaven and Earth was featured at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco (2016), followed by the solo exhibition Specular Reflection at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (2017). In 2021, his solo show Divine Immersion was presented at the USC Pacific Asia Museum, alongside participation in GLOW at the Exploratorium Museum in San Francisco. Dong earned his BFA in Mixed Media and Painting from Tung-Hai University in Taiwan and an MFA in Metalsmithing and Jewelry from the University of Oregon.
