Student Workshop on Paul Wong's "Occupy Chinatown"

First of two workshops, on December 7 & 14, 2019

Paul Wong Studios

Vancouver Chinatown

(This was an invitation-only workshop)

These workshops enabled UBC and SFU students in Asian Canadian Studies to engage creatively and critically with multimedia artist Paul Wong’s ongoing project “Occupy Chinatown.” Wong recently completed a year-long residency at the Sun Yat-sen Classical Chinese Garden that revolved around some 700 letters written to his mother from 90 writers spanning the years from 1956-2016. (For more information on “Occupying Chinatown,” see https://occupyingchinatown.com).

Participants worked collaboratively to examine and interpret a small selection of these letters  and reflect on the process through discussions with the artist and individual written reflections. The broader goal of the workshops was to examine how family histories enable us to critically consider broader issues such as memory, migration, community archives, and so on. Participants reflected on the ethical challenges of working with family documents as well as the cultural politics of recovering and representing minority histories in the present day. The findings of the workshop will inform forthcoming publications about the “Occupy Chinatown” project.

Organized by Christopher Lee (English; Asian Canadian Asian Migration Studies; St. John's College)