Good Fortunes
Good Fortunes invites visitors to travel to the future with visionary Asian Pacific American organizers and return with hopeful messages for the present. Imagining ourselves flourishing in the future feels like a radical act. I believe it is a necessary one. It’s how we turn futures that seem impossible now into reality.
Good Fortunes asks visitors to reflect on two questions and answers:
Who gets to be thought of as a visionary? Everyone, including you.
Who gets to flourish in the future? Everyone, including you.
During its month-long debut at Heurich House Museum in May 2024, over 1,000 people visited Good Fortunes and added 500 of their own wishes for the future. I was honored to receive grant support from the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center and coverage by NBC4 Washington and the Washington Post.
Photo credit: Farrah Skeiky.
Visitors to Good Fortunes retrieved messages from the future from antique US Post Office mailboxes. Enclosed in a red envelope, each message was paired with an item from the same future: for example, a message from a future Washington, DC described native wild rice returning to local waterways and came with a small glass vial of wild rice. I co-created 14 messages from the future with 14 visionary Asian Pacific American leaders. Before departing, visitors added their own wishes with the ring of a bell.
Good Fortunes was the the second installment of the We Should Talk series, created by Philippa Pham Hughes, Adele Yiseol Kenworthy, and me.
We Should Talk received Federal support from the Asian Pacific American Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, and the American Women’s History Initiative Pool, administered by the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum.
Good Fortunes featured interactive programming, including a performance by Hung Ci Lion Dance celebrate the hundreds of future wishes added to the piece by visitors.
