Spotlight Sundays: Rituals of Care Celebration with Artist Chelsea Ryoko Wong, Cut Fruit Collective, and Teaphile

Spotlight Sundays: Rituals of Care Celebration with Artist Chelsea Ryoko Wong, Cut Fruit Collective, and Teaphile

This month, Spotlight Sundays welcomes guests to join artist Chelsea Ryoko Wong for a free, all-ages celebration in OMCA’s Oak Street Plaza. Wong’s colorful paintings amplify the diversity of her Asian heritage and the vibrant family histories of the AAPI women depicted in them. Under her playful mural, titled Calling Home, this lively event will explore rituals of community care with Wong and OMCA’s community partners Cut Fruit Collective and Teaphile. 

Enjoy a traditional Gongfu tea ceremony while choosing from an assortment of fun activities, including ‘make a wish’ origami, handmade elder care cards, and kite decorating. Visitors will be invited to write hopeful messages on beautifully designed cards and paper hearts to be distributed to seniors in Chinatown and Little Saigon. 

This event is a part of our feature programming for Ancestral Visions, on view through February 2026, and is made possible by the Harker Fund Artist Residency Program.

About Chelsea Ryoko Wong

Chelsea Ryoko Wong (b. 1986, Seattle, WA) is a painter and muralist known for vibrant, joyful celebrations of community, ritual, and seasonality. Inspired by Northern California and international travels, the scenes in Wong’s paintings are infused with fantasy, humor, and imagination. Translating her printmaking background to the realm of painting, Wong’s paintings are composed through a meticulous layering of form and figure. 

Wong attended Parsons School of Design, New York and received her BFA in printmaking from California College of the Arts. She is the first recipient of the Hamaguchi Emerging Artists Fellowship award at Kala Art Institute, Berkeley and was a 2022 finalist for SFMOMA’s esteemed SECA Art Award. She has participated in recent group exhibitions at the de Young, San Francisco; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA; Creativity Explored, San Francisco, CA; Chinese Cultural Center, San Francisco, CA; and Bolinas Museum, CA. She has completed large-scale mural projects in San Francisco at Asana; La Cocina; Facebook Artist in Residence Program; and the Asian Art Museum. She was awarded the Harker Fund Residency in 2024 and will present a solo exhibition at the Oakland Museum of California in February 2025. Her work has been acquired by institutional and private collections including the de Young, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA, and Bolinas Museum, CA. Wong lives and works in the Mission District of San Francisco.

Accessibility

Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) is committed to providing programs that are accessible, welcoming, and inclusive of our community. Wheelchairs, sensory inclusive devices, and additional amenities are available for checkout on a first come, first served basis at the Ticketing Desk. To request other accommodations, like American Sign Language (ASL), Cantonese, Spanish or another language interpreter, please email [email protected] at least three weeks before the event. Learn more about our accessibility options.