“Where You Stand: Chinatown 1880 to 1939” – Union Station Installation in Partnership with Metro Art
In collaboration with historian Greg Hise and friends at the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California, The Huntington, and USC Cinema, the Chinatown History Project blends historical research with creative website and augmented reality experiences to recover the neighborhood of the original Chinatown of Los Angeles.
In the mid-1930s, the city’s first Chinatown, a vibrant, polyglot neighborhood of several thousand people, was razed to make way for Union Station, the last major metropolitan train station constructed in the United States. From a foundational database research project designed to repopulate this place with the lives of the people who lived and worked there, the project expands outward by inviting audiences and end users to see within and across layers of Southern California space and history. Where You Stand: Chinatown 1880 to 1939 invites participants into the center of the vibrant community through a multi-dimensional experience.Access the prototype of the augmented reality and details from the exhibit here.
Western Edition Season 3 Podcast
Given the nation’s widespread and often heated reckoning with sites of memorialization and commemoration in recent years, the new season of Western Edition questions six such sites across the American West from Catalina Island to Daly City, California; Jackson, Wyoming to Los Angeles; Denver to San Antonio.
Currently in its third season, Western Edition seeks to share the fascinating stories of the people and communities of the West, connecting past and present and demonstrating the tightly woven fabric of history. Launched in Fall 2021, season one investigated the legacy and calamity of wildfire in the Western U.S., while season two, launched in Spring 2022, explored the past, present, and future of L.A.’s Chinatown neighborhood.