DVAA Member since 2023

Romana Lee-Akiyama

About:

Romana Lee-Akiyama is the founding director and curator of the Chen Lok Lee Legacy Project, which she founded in March 2021 as a homage to her late father Chen Lok Lee, a pioneering Asian immigrant artist, printmaker, and professor. While growing up with two artists as parents, Romana was discouraged from pursuing a career in the arts. She instead established herself as a leader in social work, the nonprofit, philanthropic and public sectors. She currently serves as the executive director of the Mayor's Office of Public Engagement with the City of Philadelphia. At this juncture in her career, she is leaning into her emerging skills in curation, and plans to expand her portfolio to include additional underrepresented Asian/Asian American artists. Since launching the Chen Lok Lee Legacy Project, Romana has curated two exhibits in Philadelphia, and each has included community sessions focusing on themes of immigration, belonging, anti-Asian hate and violence, and what it means to create “home” for marginalized populations. With support from the Sachs Program for Arts Innovation at the University of Pennsylvania in 2021 - 2023, Romana recently curated EXCLUDED/INCLUSION which just closed at Penn’s Annenberg Center on May 31, 2023. The exhibit is currently showing at Friends Select School in Center City, Philadelphia.