Steve Wong

The China Project consists of custom designed chinaware used by two restaurants in Chinatown. Artist Steve Wong solicited hand written and hand drawn impressions, stories, and memories from the local Chinatown community, as well as from people who do not live in Chinatown. He incorporated these diverse perspectives onto 8 custom plate designs, and the restaurant and its patrons use these plates as ordinary chinaware.

Interview

Please explain the process you used for creating your piece (materials used, major steps).

First I solicited impressions, stories, and memories from Chinatown residents. I did this mainly through workshops with the Chinatown community. I had them fill out work sheets and post cards with drawings and handwritten ideas. From there I used actual hand written memories and stories for plate designs, and I'm taking these plate designs to Homer Laughlin for my fabricator (they are the premier US china producer). From the fabricator they will go to restaurants.

How did you come up with the concept for your piece?
a. How did the retreats help you develop your concept?
b. How did seeing Chinatown and talking to Chinatown residents affect your concept for the piece?

I had done some previous projects in the Los Angeles Chinatown. I gave community members vintage post cards to fill out their ideas and experiences. These vintage post cards had images that represented a very superficial and one-dimensional exotic idea of Chinatown. Community members' experiences and thoughts were written on the other side of the post card. This juxtaposed the vintage images with the living and breathing community of Chinatown. I drew largely from this project for my In/flux piece. There's also one other community that I brought directly to In/flux. I asked the sellers of postcards online about their ideas of Chinatown. Living in L.A.'s Chinatown has made me realize how much the economy is based on tourism and exotic ideas, Orientalist ideas about Chinatown. There is a symbiotic relationship of the exoticized component of Chinatown and the living and working part of Chinatown. Because of this, I brought some of the outside perspectives of Chinatown to my project. I'm incorporating these stories to the plates of Chinatown to represent the economy of Chinatown.

The retreats were essential to the process-essential to my piece is the place of community. Getting to know the community was very important to me. Coming from an outside perspective without this I wouldn't have gotten to the community. The retreats were essential to the project, and I benefited from meeting with the other artists-getting exposed to different ideas and creative energy from other ideas.

Why does your piece belong in Chinatown?

To challenge tourists and people coming in to Chinatown just for an exotic dining experience. To challenge them on how they see Chinatown. To challenge the local community on how they see outsiders. It's about the community in Chinatown-it's at Chinese restaurants, which are a fundamental part of Chinese community and economy.

Did the process of creating your piece (retreats) change your perception of Chinatown?
Did you make any relationships with people in Chinatown or generally with the community?

Through the retreats, I gathered stories. At first I found differences between L.A.'s Chinatown and Philly's Chinatown. As in L.A.'s Chinatown, I was confronted with assumptions of what Chinatown is all about. Some of these assumptions were stereotypes, and some of them were perpetuated in Chinatown.

How does this work fit with your wider body of work?

My wider body of work is very eclectic, very diverse. I work with photo, sculpture, installation, and video. This is the first time that I've done something more functional. Something outside the white box of the museum/gallery. This was exciting for me. Yet In/flux fits with themes from my other work. Most of my work deals with power dynamics, those with power versus those who have been marginalized. My work challenges the power of the mainstream perspective, a marginalizing perspective. I challenge the perspective that Chinatown is an exotic tourist trap. My In/flux project definitely stems from my work in the Los Angeles Chinatown that builds off of community voices.