Your Future Heritage(s) of East Chinatown
Despite its complex history, Chinatowns are one of the few accepted (and acceptable) overt displays of ethnocultural heritage. Given its contested and, at times, problematic history, this installation announces the future heritage(s) of Toronto’s East Chinatown as a collective act. We invite you to contribute to a shared future through this participatory installation: to reflect and take part in determining what is worth preserving.
Words by Linda Zhang.
Visitors to the exhibit were invited to explore 3D-printed scans of existing buildings in East Chinatown, and develop their own street from memory on a game board. Those street iterations were recorded, and are being reproduced in porcelain ceramic, to be installed on the wooden scaffold gate structure.
As a research assistant I have worked in collaboration to help develop and fabricate the exhibition gate, modeled after The Zhong Hua Men gate in East end Toronto. I also contributed to the development of the participatory game, and am in the process of fabricating each player's ceramic piece.
Team
Linda Zhang, Designer; Amy Yan, RA; Georgia Barrington, RA; and Jimmy Tran, Ryerson University Library Collaborator and Technology Consultant
Date
Summer 2019 – present