artist Seexeng Lee, and the Walker co-presented an art workshop and dinner to celebrate community, family, and cultural
exchange. Asian American and Pacific Islander families along with members of the Walker’s Parent Advisory Group and
their families came together to create a tiled mural filled with symbols and words inspired by Hmong culture, the Walker Art
Center, and each individual’s creativity. The result: a powerful, colorful sum of parts.Seexeng, who’s a practicing artist and
teacher at South H.S., developed the overarching design on a series of 50 small square canvas tiles and asked participants
to select a tile that spoke to them, and fill it with their own symbols. Once the paintings were complete the families helped
themselves to a delicious buffet of food from Mango Thai, while Seexeng speedily dried and assembled the paintings onto a large plywood frame behind closed
doors so that the unveiling was, to quote Johnny Depp in Charlie and the
Chocolate Factory, “the best prize of all, a SURPRISE!”
