Opening Reception – Tiny Grains: Chinatown Forever Changed, Forever Changing

During the shutdown of 2020, Edward Cheng roamed the streets of Chinatown with his camera. Businesses were closed. Work had dried up. There was nothing else to do. On these treks he ran into people he knew. He saw the same friends, acquaintances, and community members time and again. Eventually he asked to photograph them.

TINY GRAINS is at once local and universal. While the photographs capture one particular neighborhood (and in some cases one particular cross street) during one particular, unprecedented time, the stories they tell go beyond. They are stories of community and tradition. Joy in the face of adversity. Striving toward the future in an uncertain present.

The exhibition also honors the past. In 1972, Basement Workshop created Yellow Pearl, a collective work built around Chris Iijima, Nobuko Miyamoto, and Charlie Chin’s song book for the Asian American activist movement. TINY GRAINS is an homage to those early, groundbreaking days of that movement and the seminal pioneers who are still active today.

Chinatown has long been plagued by injustice, underrepresentation, and xenophobia. The pandemic only heightened these issues. Even as the neighborhood returns to “normalcy,” Cheng still feels their weight. Each photograph he takes lightens that weight. Each shopkeeper and grocery shopper. Each artist and activist. Each person coming together with others to share a drink or a meal, a laugh or a cry. To listen to stories and play music. To dance in the streets. Each person a grain of sand.

TINY GRAINS is on view Sept. 18, 2024 through Jan. 12, 2025.