Scavenging the Square - Exploring the High Five Festival

Sep 22

San francisco

Edge on the Square recently organized The High Five Festival, the Asian American art hub’s third annual contemporary art festival. Spanning from Jackson to Sacramento Street, San Francisco’s Chinatown was bustling all afternoon on that sunny September 7th and into the early evening.

The festivities began on Grant Avenue in front of Edge of the Square’s exhibit space, where the organizers began with introductions followed by performances from LionDanceME, Grant Avenue Follies, KOEX, and Audiopharmacy. Inside their building, many art installations decorate the walls for visitors to peruse and learn more about current events. A street over, there were plenty of stalls selling food to visitors.

Events and performances were strategically spread across the neighborhood so that visitors could walk the streets without overcrowding in a single area. All locations of the festival were mapped out by different earthly elements, where guests could not only explore the events at hand but venture through several iconic locations in the city.

The festival was spread out across five streets and alleyways in Chinatown.

Earth 土 | Grant Avenue

Fire 火 | Waverly Place

Metal 金 | Ross Alley

Water 水 | Wentworth Place

Air 气 | Joice Street

In Waverly Place, the Willie “Woo Woo” Wong Clubhouse held Avenues, Alleys, and Alchemy!, a panel discussion on the elements, feng shui, and urban planning design. Outside, guests flock to temari installations to learn more about the woven craft of Japanese handballs.

In Ross Alley, it is only fitting that a metal music band, NONSENSE, rocks out at the center of this colorful brick narrow. The alleyway hosts a string of small businesses - including the historic Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory - and begins to fill up with spectators. Camaraderie, the sweet scent of baking dough, and riffs of an electric guitar charge the energy in the air.

In Wentworth Place, the path is glazed over with wet paint as painters work on a new mural organized by Vida Kuang. It’s a bit of a challenge to remind both tourists and locals to avoid stepping all over it. Uta Tamate Weiss & Kai Tseng perform a blood ritual together with a drum and guzheng instrument while visitors observe on the sidewalks.

And on Joice Street, a curtain of warped, reflective sheets are draped like chainmail on the wire fences parallel to the west gate of the then-barren Central Chinese High School. At the end of the block, a Bruce Lee mural greets the passersby.

Want to learn more about the festival and experience it for yourself? Club Rambutan’s Editor-in-Chief takes the viewers through the streets of Chinatown while also completing an impromptu scavenger hunt. Check out the interview below.