detail of Playground III by Mengru Zhou When the team at Gallery B612 suggested I curate and design this year's AAPINH show, I knew I had been offered a truly precious opportunity – a chance to honor and celebrate a beautiful slice of our community in a time when celebrating the diversity shaping our country holds a different kind of weight than it ever has before. I believe every community is made more beautiful by the individuals who shape it, and as a country of immigrants

Bella Kim’s reimagining of Jogakbo unfolds through fragments of material, memory, and care. First presented at Gallery B612, her work brings together discarded plastic and textile into quiet, luminous compositions shaped by attention and repetition. As her practice moves beyond the gallery into a new institutional context, it continues to reflect on sustainability, making, and the act of holding what might otherwise be overlooked.