Made in Chinatown 心繫華埠

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Made in Chinatown心繫華埠 highlights the role that Chinatown’s local businesses, with their unique products, play for shoppers in their daily lives and on special occasions.

「心繫華埠」展示華埠當地商店如何用他們獨特的商品在顧客的每日生活和特殊節日裡扮演重要的角色。

 41 Ross EXHIBITION DATES

January 30th, 2020 - March 22nd, 2020

About the show

Made in Chinatown心繫華埠 highlights the role that Chinatown’s local businesses, with their unique products, play for shoppers in their daily lives and on special occasions. Artists Vida K 鄺楚瑩 and Kelly Ma 馬慧欣 illustrations tell three shoppers’ journeys through the many stores and how they create foods and experiences for their families. 

Starting in the time of the Gold Rush, San Francisco Chinatown’s many businesses provide shoppers with a wide variety of fresh, affordable, and hard-to-find items and ingredients. Many of these products are still made on site in the neighborhood – from Chinese sausages to silky tofu, from printed wedding invitations to custom dresses. Before suburban Chinese neighborhoods and the internet, Chinatowns in the United States were the only places to purchase Chinese foods and wares.  With its concentrations of stores, Chinatown continues to be a destination for Chinese Americans hoping to maintain and rediscover their cultural heritage and create lasting memories amongst their family and friends.

From small mom-and-pop stores to larger operations with multiple storefronts, the Chinatown’s workers at many businesses provide shoppers with understanding of the ingredients and a sense of familiarity and comradery. Every purchase is an opportunity to bargain or exchange pleasantries.  And for new immigrants without a command of English, these jobs offer much-needed employment.

"The women who work at dried goods stories are knowledgeable about what foods are where and point to any of  the ingredients you may need for any recipe. I notice SRO tenants would frequent dried goods stores because they don’t have refrigerators and dried goods easier to store and cook at your convenience." — Irene Dea Collier

“Back home in the village, we'd pull out a large bamboo basket for everyone to make sweet fried dumplings (角子) together. I miss it. My mom and dad would do the frying and we'd have an assembly line to knead, fold, and add fillings. Once we're done, we'd bag them up for each of the relatives we'd visit.” —Amy Dai 戴雪艳

Chinatown’s stores help Chinese immigrants as well as Chinese Americans to maintain their cultural and culinary heritage, from gathering together to cooking and eating, to celebrating holidays and occasions like the Lunar New Year or weddings, babies, and birthdays. Irene Dea Collier shares about one dish that is significant to her, "We'd have ham yu (鹹魚) for the new year, plain ham yu and rice. It's a humble reminder that it's enough to flavor your food for the rest of the year. It's still special seeing my kids eat it." This neighborhood provides a platform where multiple generations can share experiences and create a sense of belonging within their families and community – all Made in Chinatown. 

This exhibit is in association with Spotlight Chinatown, a program by the Chinatown Community Development Center, supporting Chinatown commerce and community. The program is supported by the San Francisco Office of Economic and Workforce Development (OEWD), San Francisco Municipal Transit Agency (SFMTA), and Chinese Chamber of Commerce. This exhibit is generously supported by The Kresge Foundation and Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC). 41 Ross is run through a partnership between Chinatown Community Development Center and the Chinese Culture Center.   

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Vida K. 鄺楚瑩 was raised by a Toisan matriarch and the streets of Chinatown. She is an artist and educator. Her education comes from growing up in her family’s corner store, her work with youth in San Francisco, and elders who mentor her growth. As a visual storyteller, her work centers her communities’ stories alongside a legacy of cultural workers, whose labor keeps her communities thriving. Her art practice is inspired by movements led by women of color for racial, gender, and economic justice. Vida’s work addresses the complexities and intersections of survival, healing, and memory. She uses illustration, photography, and mixed media as tools for storytelling and is a member of Appendix, an artist collective of multi-ethnic API womxn artists in the Bay. Vida believes storytelling is one of the most fundamental ways to decolonize her communities’ hearts and minds for collective liberation.

Kelly Ma 馬慧欣is a senior attending Galileo High School and participates in Chinatown Community Development Center’s three of the four youth programs (Adopt an Alleyway, Chinatown Alleyway Tours, and Campaign Academy). She immigrated three years ago and lives on Vallejo and Columbus with her 73-year-old grandmother in Chinatown.

Olivia Ting 丁苑心is interested in the role of digital technology in the fabric of contemporary lives and rearranging how our memories are collected and formulated in our consciousness. Formerly a pre-med science major at Pomona College, Olivia went on to a second degree in graphic design at Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles and was employed in New York at agencies and various boutiques. Coming back to San Francisco, Olivia’s work has expanded to photography and video in collaboration with movement-based performers. Recently, she collaborated with Lenora Lee Dance, who was an Artist in Residence at San Francisco deYoung Museum. In addition to theater work, Olivia continues to work as a graphic and video media designer. She was commissioned to design a permanent exhibit video projection for Oakland Museum of California’s Natural History Gallery. Olivia has been nominated four times for the Isadora Duncan Award for Visual Design and she is a grant recipient of San Francisco Arts Commission’s Individual Artist Commission for 2016 and 2019.

A map of where to eat and shop in Chinatown

click to download printable pdf of map

Photos from the exhibit