Opening Night Gala

@ UO Jordan Schnitzer Art Museum

Brady Wakayama, Emcee
Free with a ticket to The Jade Pendant.
Come celebrate our Opening Night at JSMA! Food, introduction of filmmakers and Special Guest: Vishavjit Singh—Sikh Captain America (Drawn Together: Comics, Diversity and Stereotypes).

Vishavjit Singh is the nation’s first and only turbaned/bearded cartoonist & creator of Sikhtoons.com. He has a background in Public Health & Information Technology and is a Media Fellow at SALDEF, an advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C. After experiencing the confining nature of labels (race, ethnic, gender, faith, national, color, language, body image, culture, negative, positive), being placed upon him all his life, he finally found his voice following tragedies using the power of art, words, and story telling. It is our stories that connect us in a myriad of ways under that tip of the iceberg our eyes see.

Our vulnerabilities can be a force for profound change. Sometimes it feels like courage is something only other people have. Yet through some of the most intense adversities & tragedies Vishavjit discovered that courage resides in all of us, waiting to come out in moments of need.

Live Entertainment

Enjoy entertainment by poet Alex Dang and singer/songwriter Chinyi Chen, acoustic guitar.

Alex Dang is the only member in history to be on the Portland Poetry Slam nationals team four years in a row. A TedX speaker, his work has been viewed on Youtube over 2 million times and has been shared by Upworthy, Huffington Post, and more. On any given day you can find him eating a burger or on a stage doing poems.

Chinyi Chen wrote her first song three weeks into teaching herself the guitar. Largely personal, her music is a way of finding home. She spent most of her life on the move before currently landing in Oregon, where she enjoys long runs outside and eating her way across the Pacific Northwest.

Thursday, April 19, 2018
9:30 pm — 11:00 pm (1h 30′)

University of Oregon

Special event