Fine Arts Center to Host Two Kristina Wong Performances

Kristina Wong
Kristina Wong

Performance artist Kristina Wong returns to the UMass Amherst Fine Arts Center spring season roster for two events. First is a free “Stitch and Bitch Community Craft Night,” a crafting with conscience workshop, on Wednesday, Feb. 24 at 7 p.m. ET. On Monday, March 1 at 7 p.m. is a ticketed performance of “Kristina Wong: Sweatshop Overlord,”Wong’s autobiographical work infused with her cutting wit about the experience of erecting a remote PPE production “factory” in ten days at the start of the pandemic. Registrations and tickets for both events are available at fineartscenter.com. Tickets for “Sweatshop Overlord” are $10 per household or device and free for the “Stitch and Bitch.” Registration is required for both events.

“Stitch 'n Bitch Community Craft Night” riffs on the “stitch n’ bitch” concept, a gathering of crafty folks to talk, listen and work on needlecraft together. According to Wong, sometimes these gatherings become a space for laughter, resistance, self-care, community building and organizing. In this special online community version, participants will meet and sew with the rock-star volunteers from Kristina’s Auntie Sewing Squad, a national collective of volunteers of all genders who will take newcomers through the activity of making their own hand sewn mask and share what sewing means to them in this time. A PDF download with a materials list and instructions to hand sew a facemask is available for participants on the event web page. Beginners and other crafts are welcome.

“Kristina Wong: Sweatshop Overlord” is Wong’s newest performance art piece, born from the COVID-19 pandemic, Kristina details how she went from out-of-work performance artist to overlord of a homemade face mask empire in just ten days! With her trademark wit, she explores how she built a sweatshop of hundreds of volunteer "Aunties" (including children and her own mother) to fix the U.S. public health care system while in quarantine. Wong hilariously unpacks the American dream, the country’s pursuit of global empire at the cost of basic PPE to essential workers and healthy citizens, and the significance of women of color performing invisible, gendered, and racialized labor during heightened anti-Asian racism.

Wong, a performance artist, comedian, writer and elected representative has been in the news for launching the “Auntie Sewing Squad,” a volunteer group that has sewn and distributed over 60,000 masks to underserved communities across the country since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. When her spring tour was cancelled, Wong decided to put her sewing skills to good use and offered to make masks for those in need. Requests rolled in and so did eventually 800 volunteers to help with the effort. “Sweatshop Overlord” is derived from that experience.

Kristina Wong is one of the leading Asian American performance artists and has been featured in the New York Times’ Off Color series “highlighting artists of color who use humor to make smart social statements about the sometimes subtle, sometimes obvious ways that race plays out in America today.”  Among the numerous immersive theater experiences she’s helped create, she’s created viral web series like “How Not to Pick Up Asian Chicks” and just launched the second season of the award winning “Radical Cram School.” Her rap career in post-conflict Northern Uganda is the subject of her last solo theater show “The Wong Street Journal” which toured the US, Canada and Lagos, Nigeria (presented by the US Consulate).  Her long running show “Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” looked at the high rates of depression and suicide among Asian American women and is now broadcast-quality film distributed by Cinema Libre Studios. For more information, visit kristinawong.com.

The Fine Arts Center hosts Kristina Wong as part of the Reimagine Residency Series, which invites nationally-recognized artists who are dedicated to addressing contemporary social issues to engage through performance, education, and outreach activities. Kristina's residency includes educational outreach to UMass students in Theater, Asian American Studies and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and is supported by the Applewood and Loomis Communities.

For more information and tickets to “Kristina Wong: Sweatshop Overlord” visit fineartscenter.com. For tickets and questions, the box office can be reached by email at facbox@umass.edu and by phone at 413-545-2511 or 800-999-UMAS, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. “Kristina Wong: Sweatshop Overlord” is sponsored by the Daily Hampshire Gazette.