On Tuesday, MOCA and its expansion plans were featured on the PBS NewsHour as part of longtime Chief Correspondent of Arts, Culture, and Society Jeffrey Brown's Canvas series. Watch the piece here.

“Maya Lin is known for her memorials, architecture, and her art. A new project adds a very personal side to her story and of millions of other Asian Americans. As the Museum of Chinese in America seeks to expand its own presence and the larger American story,” Brown reports.

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About the New MOCA

In April 2022, the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) unveiled plans for its new headquarters designed by world-renowned architect Maya Lin in partnership with Ralph Appelbaum Associates, one of the world’s leading museum design firms. The project is the first collaboration between the two firms.

The unveiling of the new national institution comes at a critical time when anti-Asian hate crimes rose to 10,905 incidents nationwide since March 2020. The new facility will make a statement in the fight against anti-Asian American Pacific Islander discrimination while ensuring the museum continues its mission of preserving and protecting the history of the Chinese American community as well as the larger Asian American diaspora.

Located in New York City’s Chinatown, the new facility will replace MOCA’s current home and expand its current footprint from 12,000 square feet to more than 68,000 square feet. The building will feature a center for research and genealogy, theater, classrooms, a cooking demonstration kitchen, exhibit space, a canteen, and outdoor gathering spaces. The new space, expected to open in 2025, will offer visitors a welcoming place for research, exploration, education, creation, and gathering.

Just as the space will welcome visitors from across the country and around the world, it will also provide Chinatown and the surrounding neighborhoods a place for local groups to collaborate and showcase work, share multigenerational experiences, and create new works of art – the first state of the art location of its kind in the area.

Click here to explore the capital campaign, and contact MOCA's campaign team at [email protected] to learn more about supporting this exciting chapter in our journey.

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