HomeBad Ass AsiansNew Exhibition in New York Highlights Chinatowns and Chinese Across the US
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New Exhibition in New York Highlights Chinatowns and Chinese Across the US

By Shirley Ng, AsAmNews Staff Writer

A new photo exhibition in New York highlights the images often missed by tourists in the nation’s Chinatowns.

Margin Matters: Empathy and Concern photo exhibit

“”Chinatown is a different place. I see buildings here being sold for a lot of money. If something is beginning to disintegrate, it becomes rich and sought after or it can be totally eaten up by graffiti, “ says Executive Director, Bonita Lei, one of the contributing photographers showcased in the show Margin Matters: Empathy and Concern at the New York Arts Center.

Bonita Lei, Executive Director of the New York Arts Center
Bonita Lei, Executive Director of the New York Arts Center

Besides Lei, the exhibit has photographs displayed on brilliant white walls by Corky Lee, Chee Wang Ng and L. Rogers.

The exhibition is described as documenting “social-political changes during the current administration.” The images are often invisible and ignored, but are seen through the eyes of these photographers and capture a slow and sometimes silent social movement.

Ng enjoys taking photographs in the evening of Asian restaurants with their neon signs lit up. His photographs jump out at you. He says he’s telling the story of the availability of Asian food around the country in places such as Indiana, Iowa and Wyoming.  He seeks out Asian restaurants when he is traveling and takes their photographs to reflect the area. 

“As a minority we are part of society, Asians cook and feed others and they are the foundation of society, “ said Ng. 

Rogers photographs are of local graffiti in Chinatown and the Lower East Side. His photos has you wondering what does this graffiti mean? What’s it saying?” You don’t think about the graffiti when you’re walking by it, but when you’re looking at it when you’re still, it captures your curiosity.  Rogers is a photographer, artist and art teacher. She was not present for an interview.

Photograph of graffiti in Chinatown by L. Rogers
Photograph of graffiti in Chinatown by L. Rogers

A majority of the photographs in the exhibit are from Lee, a photographer for over four decades who captures the Asian American experience.  From the 1970’s to the present time, some of Lee’s photographs depict a Chinatown in a tumultuous period of civil rights rallies, police brutality, and labor strikes of Chinese restaurant workers. Also on display is a recent photograph of descendants of Chinese Transcontinental Railroad workers taken in Promontory Summit, Utah.

“When you have a non-Chinese photographer, they totally missed the social justice movement in Chinatown, “ said Corky Lee, referring to a White photographer, Bud Glick, who recently exhibited his photographs of Chinatown in a local Chinatown museum.

“He completely ignored anything that took place in Chinatown during the 1980’s, “ Lee said, as he pointed out his photos to me of a Chinatown garment workers strike and rally against a jail to be built in Chinatown.

He explains that to fully understand the social movement in Chinatown, a photographer personally connected with the people and the community can tell a better story.

“When you have a non-Chinese photographer taking pictures of Chinatown, he doesn’t understand what’s going on,” said Lee.

“I want people to know that there are things to seen here, not just traditional Chinese art nor contemporary art. As a photographer and artist, that chance of capturing that photo is the most important thing in your life,” says Lei. Her street photographs can be viewed on a laptop at the exhibit.

The exhibit runs through February 24, 2019 and admission is free. It is open on weekdays from 10am-5pm and weekends 11am-4pm.  The New York Arts Center is located on 78 Bowery St 2nd floor in New York City.

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