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. 

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. 

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.