In My Feathered Pajamas May 2025 Events
Join us in Japantown, Chinatown and The Ferry Building this May for communal art-making/ storytelling celebrating women's histories, part of the APICC USAAF Festival
"In My Feathered Pajamas" Brings Participatory Public Art to San Francisco in May 2025, Centering and Honoring The Power of AAPI Women’s Stories
San Francisco, CA – In My Feathered Pajamas: Women’s Stories of Critical Refuge, a participatory public art-making / storytelling event exploring migration, sanctuary, and resilience, will take place in San Francisco throughout May 2025. Hosted at key cultural sites in Japantown, Chinatown and at the Ferry Building, this immersive fiber art experience invites community members to engage in collective storytelling through creative action.
At the heart of In My Feathered Pajamas is an interactive experience in which attendees and passers-by are invited to select hand-crocheted and fabric feathers from a communal nest. The nest represents collective care, adaptation, and belonging. Each person is invited to add the name of a woman that they wish to honor to the feather that they have chosen. They are then invited to attach the feather to an evolving communal robe, representing protection, transformation, and solidarity.
Educational handouts will be available, and will also be shared online, providing short biographies of AAPI women throughout San Francisco’s history who have been vital to the local resistance, labor, and justice movements. Throughout history, women have provided radial caregiving and sanctuary in their communities while also contributing at every level of society, often without recognition and against tremendous odds. These histories are often erased. By celebrating them and centering these narratives, we remind everyone of the power of women’s stories. Now more than ever, women’s voices, especially those of immigrants, caregivers, queer and disabled women, are vital. In 2025, reproductive rights, immigration enforcement, digital censorship, and housing insecurity disproportionately impact women of color.
Each event culminates in a ceremonial moment where the robe is donned, embodying the resilience and solidarity of those who have experienced displacement, relocation and instability. By blending fiber art, performance, and community engagement, In My Feathered Pajamas turns public spaces into living reflections on sanctuary and solidarity.
This living, evolving artwork, led by interdisciplinary artist Badri Valian with participating artist Kathryn Vercillo, transforms public spaces into sites of reflection, connection, and sanctuary. The event is part of the 2025 United States of Asian America Festival, presented by the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center (APICC). The event is made possible with help from NEA, Zellerbach Family Foundation, SFAC and Grants for the Arts.
Event Schedule:
Japantown Peace Plaza – May 3, 2025 | 11:00 AM - 2:00 PM
Ferry Building – May 4, 2025 | 11:00 AM - 2:00 PM
41Ross (Chinatown) - May 10, 2025 | 11:00 AM - 2:00 PM
Participants of all backgrounds are invited to take part in this unique, community-driven art experience.
About the Artists
Badri Valian (she/they) is an interdisciplinary artist and social practitioner exploring migration, resilience, and collective care through fiber art and participatory storytelling. Their work transforms public spaces into sites of connection and healing, amplifying underrepresented voices, especially women and immigrants, through interactive installations, historical narratives, and community-driven creative action. Learn more at badrivalian.com.
(she/they) is a writer-artist-research exploring the complex intersection of art and health. Drawing from a background in psychology and lived experience, her work bridges personal expression with social engagement, using craft as a means of connection, reflection, and advocacy. Learn more at .Media Inquiries
For interviews, press materials, or further information, please contact:
Badri Valian | info@badrivalian.com
