Think!Chinatown’s urban planning-focused exhibition, Making or Faking Chinatown? Representing People, Place and Culture will be open to LES Arts & Culture Open House visitors from 12-4PM. Curator and architectural historian Kerri Culhane and artist John Lee will be present to answer any questions about the show!

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Making or Faking Chinatown? Representing People, Place and Culture is a thought-provoking urban planning-focused exhibition exploring the unresolved debate of cultural representation in Chinatown’s built environment through extensive research, photographs from Chinatowns across North America, and artwork by artist John Lee. In 2024, the NYC Economic Development Corporation launched the Chinatown Connections project which includes the redesign of Kimlau Square and creation of a “Chinatown Welcome Gateway”. This city project has reignited the conversation about cultural representation. In Chinatowns around the world, gateways, known as paifang–along with lanterns, dragons and the ubiquitous color red–present a generic notion of Chinese culture for public consumption. Are these stereotypes or symbols of Chinatown? This exhibition explores the range of placekeeping and placemaking strategies in Chinatowns, from everyday life to the staged production of culture.