Bridging generations
Saratoga High School sophomore Athena Zhang won a Cupertino-based nonprofit’s art contest for a design that uses natural elements to depict artificial intelligence.
Zhang’s “Bridging Generational Currents” won the 2024 Art Design Contest held by the Chinese American Coalition for Compassionate Care (CACCC), which supports end-of-life care concerns in the Chinese community.
Zhang’s design will be used in CACCC’s Compassion in Action, a fundraiser and a series of educational programs set for May 17-31, 2025. The student artist won $300 for her artwork, inspired by the importance of water in Chinese culture.
“Water symbolizes the ability to overcome and adapt, which goes hand in hand with the concept of CACCC’s 20th anniversary theme, ‘Empowering Caregiving with Human-Centered AI,’” said Zhang in a release.
Zhang’s design uses two koi fish to “illustrate perseverance and transformation. From an abstract perspective, the koi fish act as a ‘bridge’ for the human-centered AI to cross and reach the ones in need of caregiving,” Zhang added.
“The elements she chose to use in her final artwork are symbolically and culturally meaningful, as well as personal,” said Sandy Chen Stokes, CACCC’s founder and executive director.
Soul of New Orleans
The Montalvo Arts Center’s Carriage House Theater will on Jan. 29 be filled with the “spirit of Mardi Gras” in a night celebrating composers and songs from New Orleans.
The event, titled “New Orleans Songbook,” promises to immerse audiences in the city’s “timeless spirit,” with pianist Luther S. Allison and vocalists Quiana Lynell and Milton Suggs, presented by the New York-based organization Jazz at the Lincoln Center.
Tickets, starting at $70, are available at montalvoarts.org.
