Care for Chinatown: Chinatown Mural Initiative 2020-2021
Having spent a majority of my life in Chinatown, it was devastating to see the negative impact that Covid-19 on the neighborhood. Lack of traffic coupled with racism/xenophobia caused countless local businesses and organizations to suffer. In an effort to revitalize the neighborhood, I worked with local organization, Welcome to Chinatown, to create murals and host painting workshops for the community. Our goal was to raise $10,000 to create art for Chinatown. In the end, we saved much of that money after the murals were painted and donated it to the neighborhood’s longevity fund.
Below are a few of the murals I created for Chinatown, many of which members of the community showed up and helped paint themselves!
Read more about the initiative here.
Mural Recipients: CPC NY (Chinese-American Planning Council of NY) Community Center and Little Star Daycare, Yaya’s Tea Garden, Chinatown Optical, Sun’s Organic Tea Garden, Soft Swerve Ice Cream
CPC NY: Chinatown Community Center and Daycare Center:
I collaborated with CPC NY, the nation’s largest Asian-American social organization, to create two murals for Chinatown’s community daycare center. The daycare is available to all families in lower Manhattan. I worked with the directors and officers of CPC to create dreamscapes for the children. The first concept is an interpretation of the daycare’s location beside the Williamsburg bridge. Here, we depicted several families that attend the daycare and some of their favorite foods and activities, all interacting with the whimsical landscape.
The second concept is all about the children who attend the daycare - embarking on new adventures and learning and growing along the way. We included symbols that were subtle nods to Asian culture as a celebration of Chinatown’s roots.
Photos by Caleb Nunn
Soft Swerve
Mural for popular ice cream shop in NYC, Soft Swerve. The owners were awesome and gave me creative freedom for their space. I wanted to bring to light their main customer-base and add a little magic to it. The elements and patterns are based off their favorite toppings like marshmallow fluff, sprinkles, and crumble.
Yaya’s Tea Garden
Window installations for popular snack and boba-tea spot, Yaya Tea Garden. We worked with local Chinatown printshop, Vida signs, to create custom window vinyls for the storefront. The design is inspired by their fun menu as well the inspiration behind Yaya’s story, her family.
Chinatown Optical:
Window installations for a legacy spot in Chinatown: Chinatown Optical. We also worked with Vida signs for this shop. The art was inspired by the generational community in the streets of Chinatown.
