Part 7: Friday’s Kick-Off
The ResLab 2021 Opening Kick-Off on Friday, August 27th was a success! Over 100 people joined us for the evening kick-off, which included two different workshops led by this year’s ResLab participants. Local performer Keytar Bear played some classic tunes on his synthesizer that matched the liveliness of the crowd.
IMG Description: This year’s ResLab cohort and team members with Keytar the Bear at Mary Soo Hoo Park during the 2021 ResLab Opening Kick-Off. Everyone is smiling and holding flowers, some people wearing masks. Photo Credit: Lee-Daniel Tran.
Visitors gathered around for iced tea and drawing at Sheila and Cass’s golden dragon picnic table,with families and friends of artists and residents sitting together trading jokes and stories. Passerbyers and friends alike traced the footprints and pawprints, created by Brian, Clare, and Itasha, that led to bright, yellow blasts of multilingual affirmations. Yuko, Kathy, Amy, and Elaine’s workshop invited visitors to decorate wooden butterflies in response to specific prompts related to collective care. The team then hung their decorated butterflies on the community garden trellis, making extra to wear as necklaces.
This opening was the culmination of four months of training and co-creating between artists and residents. It is hard to believe how much thought, care, and effort went into each ResLab activation, and now these artworks will stand in Mary Soo Hoo Park until September 25th.
IMG description: ResLab participants, Yuko, Kathy, Elaine, and Amy stand behind their completed Community is a Garden installation at Mary Soo Hoo Park, each holding flowers from their bouquet. The planter box is brightly painted and filled with flowers, with colorful decorated butterflies hanging from the trellis.
IMG Description: Brian, Itasha, and Clare invited Keytar the Bear to perform at this year’s ResLab Opening Kick-Off as part of their team opening activity. Keytar the Bear’s performance added an extra sparkle to the night!
Caption: After Cass gave her speech explaining the significance of the painted dragon as a symbol of honor and community unit, Cass told me that until she began this program, she never realized the amount of work and careful thought that went into an art installation-- nor that she imagined it would look so beautiful as it did after completion.
Caption: What makes a community strong? When do we feel cared for in Chinatown? Here are just some of the answers hung up on the trellis:
“Eating in Chinatown makes me feel nurtured and warm.” “green space” “多多包容大家” (translation: more tolerance for everyone)
IMG Description: Keytar the Bear participating in the abundance among us drawing workshop during the ResLab 2021 Opening Kick-Off at Mary Soo Hoo Park.
IMG Description: While this year’s ResLab Opening Kick-off has come to a close, the projects themselves will be up at Mary Soo Hoo Park until September 25th! Keep an eye out for more news about this year’s ResLab by following Pao Arts Center and the Asian Community Development Corporation on Facebook and Instagram!
Collective care has always been practiced by the residents of Chinatown and those who care for and love this neighborhood. Embodied in the early family associations, institutionalized in the strong network of community-based organizations, and practiced in every day acts of care and concern for Chinatown such as neighborhood safety patrols, collective care is the heartbeat of this neighborhood. Despite the lack of institutional care Chinatown has endured due to highway expansion, institutional expansion, and most recently rapid luxury development and displacement, Chinatown continues to thrive and flourish by intentionally creating and activating spaces as a way to heal from these wounds of intergenerational trauma. The art, creative practice, and partnership between artists and residents in ResLab expanded on this idea and practice of collective care in Mary Soohoo Park, one of Chinatown’s few open spaces, named after one of Chinatown’s heroines, a park that sits at the foot of the highway, a park that had fallen under neglect. Collective care in ResLab highlighted the beauty, love, and hope that grew out of the partnership between the local artists and diverse Chinatown residents. Through art and creative practice, they transformed the space into one where all could feel a sense of belonging.
Brian, Itasha, and Clare’s bright footprints and stars invite all of us to enter and walk through the park, while simultaneously being mindful of important affirmations necessary during a time of uncertainty due to the pandemic and racial trauma.
Cass and Sheila’s table symbolizes and invites multi-generational and multi-racial gatherings of folks from the neighborhood and throughout the City.
Yuko, Kathy, Elaine, and Amy installation of Community is a Garden is a reminder of the beauty that can grow, even among the urban concrete, when we use our hands and put love into what we create.