This event recognizes Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

Lunch catering will be provided by The Fattened Caf and served buffet style. Vegetarian and vegan options will be available.

Ria Unson is a St. Louis-based award-winning visual artist. She was born in the Philippines and emigrated to the United States at age 13. Unbeknownst to her, her great-grandfather was assigned to the 1904 World’s Fair. By sheer coincidence (or destiny) she moved to Demun, the neighborhood that once housed the Philippine Reservation at the Fair. She has exhibited in solo and group shows throughout St. Louis. Her work will be on view at 31art gallery in May and at Lambert Airport’s East Gallery in August.

Artist Statement

As a conceptual artist, I reimagine the collective archive as a tool for understanding the world and my own lived experience as a Filipino American. How does memory shape us? Who decides what is remembered? Who benefits from the stories that are memorialized? Combining portraiture with published text is one way I illuminate how the past and the stories we tell about it impose themselves on the present and, how that in turn, creates a certain kind of future. My art practice introduces possibilities—how we can use the lens of the present to interrogate histories and rebuild archives that include perspectives that historically, have been erased, misrepresented, altered, or excluded.