Our Work
Our programs, exhibitions, and collections highlight and make accessible A/P/A cultural and intellectual production.
Events
Engage with thought-provoking talks, discussions, performances, and gatherings.
Exhibitions
Experience powerful stories and gain new perspectives through the visions of emerging and established artists.
Collections
Explore extensive archives documenting the rich histories of Asian/Pacific/American communities.
Initiatives
Our projects highlight innovative collaborations, scholarly research, and creative endeavors that center Asian/Pacific/American narratives and address critical issues impacting our communities.
Asian/Pacific/American Documentary Heritage Archives Survey
The first systematic attempt to map existing and potential Asian/Pacific/American archival collections in the New York metropolitan area.
The Asian/Pacific/American Documentary Heritage Archives Survey seeks to address the underrepresentation of East Coast Asian America in historic scholarship and archives by surveying the collections of community-based organizations and individuals. The project serves as a central resource for learning about and accessing these collections, which have been surveyed by A/P/A Institute’s Graduate Scholars in A/P/A Archives. This project is a collaboration between the A/P/A Insitute and Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives at New York University. It was generously funded from 2008-11 by the Metropolitan New York Library Council.
C.V. Starr Fund for A/P/A Research
The C.V. Starr Fund for Asian/Pacific/American Research awards grants to NYU students, NYU adjunct faculty members, and A/P/A Institute visiting scholars and visiting academics working on research and/or community projects.
The goal of this fund is to promote a convergence of theory and practice in Asian/Pacific/American Studies and its related fields by providing financial support for research expenses and conference participation.
The C.V. Starr Fund for Asian/Pacific/American Research is administered by the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU, which provides a platform for scholarship, art, activism, and cultural and political exchanges about Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in New York City and beyond.
Moving Objects: Modes of Conveyance & the Making of Global Asias
A collaborative project between the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU and Penn State’s Global Asias Initiative.
“Moving Objects: Modes of Conveyance & the Making of Global Asias” is a collaborative project between the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU and Penn State’s Global Asias Initiative. A spring 2026 symposium at NYU (on Friday, April 24, 2026) and a Convergence feature for a special issue of Verge: Studies in Global Asias will explore the varied modes of conveyance that facilitate the movements (of people, cultural objects, and materials) by which Global Asias come into existence.
Jack G. Shaheen Research Grants
The Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies and the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU sponsor grants for scholars to engage with the Jack G. Shaheen Collection.
These grants are meant to facilitate travel to and accommodation in New York City over a short period of time for scholars conducting archival research in the Jack G. Shaheen Collection on Arabs in US Film and Television held at the NYU Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives and Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU.
NYU Global Asia/Pacific Art Exchange (GAX)
The NYU Global Asia/Pacific Art Exchange brings together scholars, curators, and artists and a group of scholars from participating partner institutions.
The gatherings and working sessions aim to generate research, publications, exhibitions, and other projects to strengthen international networks of scholars and curators, and create ongoing dialogue between colleagues, arts communities, and wider publics in the United States, Asia, Pacific, Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Middle East in the expanding field of Global Asian and Pacific Visual Cultures.
Through international site visits, symposia, public dialogues, and ongoing working sessions, GAX aims to build sustained multi-year, inter-institutional connections to encourage a broader transnational discourse while recognizing the continual importance of local contextualization and place.
The exchange has taken place in Shanghai, China; Hong Kong; and Wollongong, Sydney, and Canberra, Australia (2013); Washington DC and New York City (2014); Tokyo and Honolulu (2015); Buenos Aires (2017); London and Berlin (2018); Tiohtiá:ke (Montreal) (2019); Aotearoa (2020, virtual); virtually (2021); Venice (2022); and Taiwan (2025).
Virtual Asian American Art Museum (VAAAM)
The virtual museum is an inter-institutional digital humanities project.
Rather than a physical museum, VAAAM digitally presents dynamic, curated materials from US and international repositories to visualize, analyze, and contextualize Asian American art history. VAAAM facilitates the discussion of key topics emerging from the developing discourse of digital art history, American art, national and international standards for museum and institutional collection sharing, and digital access while fostering the transnational narrative of Asian American art.
Learn more about our collections and exhibitions with A/P/A Institute publications.
“The A/P/A Institute quickly became my intellectual home. Through my affiliation as a Visiting Scholar, I found comrades, political grounding, and a direction for my research and writing.”
