Guest Curated Series

In recognition of the 250th anniversary of the United States, Guest Curator Daniel Tam-Claiborne invites Seattle audiences to reflect on the many diasporas that shape our collective story. Across three evenings aligned with significant cultural moments, Daniel brings together writers, artists, scholars and community leaders to explore the friction and fertility between heritage and assimilation. We’ll look at what is preserved, what is transformed, and what new forms of richness emerge when cultures meet.

Each program spotlights a distinct community: East African, Southeast Asian, and Nordic. They create space for broader conversations about allyship, solidarity and shared futures. Through literature, journalism, film, music, and interdisciplinary dialogue, the series celebrates contributions that are often underrecognized yet deeply woven into the civic fabric of the Pacific Northwest.

Hosted in partnership with local cultural organizations and community anchors, these gatherings are both celebratory and reflective. They are an invitation to listen closely; honor lived experience; and consider how stories of migration, memory, and belonging continue to redefine what America is—and who it is for.

Daniel Tam-Claiborne is a multiracial author, multimedia producer and nonprofit director.

His debut novel, “Transplants,” was a finalist for the 2023 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. A 2022 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow, he has also received fellowships and residencies from the U.S. Fulbright Program, Poets & Writers, Bread Loaf, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Swatch Art Peace Hotel, and others.

Daniel holds degrees from Oberlin College, Yale University, and the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.

We have offered guest-curated programming since 2021.