身在唐人街/Occupying Chinatown is Paul Wong’s year-long artist residency at Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden that launched in Spring 2018. Wong is creating a series of multidisciplinary artworks based on 700 letters in Chinese sent by 90 writers to his mother, Suk-Fong Wong.

This residency will evoke memories and loss for the generations of Chinese-Canadians who built a community within a segregated Chinatown. Occupying Chinatown throughout the seasons will feature collaborative contemporary works of art with various artists, and will engage visitors and community with diverse programming, workshops, performances, events, and a book.

Programming

Spring exhibition | Ordinary Shadows, Chinese Shade

Summer exhibition | 鹹水埠溫哥華/咸水埠温哥华/Saltwater City Vancouver

Summer event | Pride in Chinatown

Fall exhibition | 媽媽的藥櫃/Mother’s Cupboard

Winter exhibition | 淑芳你好嘛/Suk-Fong, How Are You?

Occupying Chinatown is a public art project commissioned by the City of Vancouver Public Art Program in partnership with Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden. With support from the Audain Foundation and the British Columbia Arts Council.

About Paul Wong

Paul Wong has been creating daring work for over 40 years, pushing the boundaries of conventional cultural stereotypes and art. He has produced large-scale interdisciplinary artworks in unexpected public spaces since the 1970s. His work subverts stereotypes in form and content. Many works are bilingual and trilingual, meshing English, Cantonese, and Mandarin codes. Works include: Ordinary Shadows, Chinese Shade (Cantonese and English) (1988); Chinaman’s Peak: Walking the Mountain (1992); Blending Milk and Water: Sex in the New World (1996); Widows 97 (1997), Wah-Q: The Overseas Chinese (1998) and Refugee Class of 2000 (2000). paulwongprojects.com