Screening and Conversation: Big Fight In Little Chinatown

Free activity | Space is limited, reservation required.

Tickets

As part of the exhibition Swallowing Mountains by Karen Tam, attend the screening of the documentary Big Fight In Little Chinatown (2022), by filmmaker Karen Cho. The screening will be followed by a conversation in English between director Karen Cho and artist in residence Karen Tam, and a public Q&A.

Big Fight In Little Chinatown

All across the globe, Chinatowns are under threat of disappearing – and along with them, the rich history of communities who fought from the margins for a place to belong. Big Fight in Little Chinatown documents the collective fight to save Chinatowns across North America. Big Fight in Little Chinatown is a story of community resistance and resilience. Set against the backdrop of the COVID pandemic and an unprecedented rise in anti-Asian racism, the documentary takes us into the lives of residents, businesses and community organizers whose neighborhoods are facing active erasure.

Coast to Coast, the film follows Chinatown communities resisting the pressures around them. From the construction of the world’s largest vertical jail in New York, Montreal’s fight against developers swallowing up the most historic block of their Chinatown, big box chains and gentrification forces displacing Toronto’s community, to a Vancouver Chinatown business holding steadfast, the film reveals how Chinatown is both a stand-in for other communities who’ve been wiped off the city map, and the blueprint for inclusive and resilient neighbourhoods of the future.

Director: Karen Cho
Producer: Bob Moore
Production Company: EyeSteelFilm
Runtime: 88 mins
Country of Production: Canada
Language: French, subtitled in English

Information

Free activity presented on Wednesday, April 5, 2023 at 6 p.m.
Documentary in French, subtitled in English. Conversation and public Q&A in English.
Location: J. Armand Bombardier Theatre at the Museum
Space is limited, reservation required.

About Guest Speakers

Karen Cho – Director

Karen Cho (曹嘉伦) is a Chinese-Canadian filmmaker known for her socio-political documentaries. Karen’s first film In the Shadow of Gold Mountain (2004) explored the legacy of the Chinese Head Tax, Exclusion Act and redress movement.

Karen’s other films include the Gemini-Nominated Seeking Refuge (2009) a film on refugees in Canada and Status Quo? The Unfinished Business of Feminism in Canada (2012) that won Best Documentary at the Whistler Film Festival and launched in over 67 community screenings across the country.

Karen’s TV work has touched on subjects like Indigenous health and wellness, Japanese Canadian internment, Quebecois cuisine, Vancouver’s downtown east side, and artist activists around the world. In 2018 Karen was nominated for a Best Directing Canadian Screen Award for her work on CBC’s Interrupt This Program.

Karen Tam – Artist

Karen Tam is a Tiohtià:ke/Montreal-based artist and curator whose research focuses on the constructions and imaginations of cultures and communities through her installations in which she recreates Chinese restaurants, karaoke lounges, opium dens, curio shops and other sites of cultural encounters. Since 2000, she has exhibited her work and participated in residencies in North America, Europe and China, including at the Victoria and Albert Museum, He Xiangning Art Museum, and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. She has received grants and fellowships from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Conseil des arts du Québec, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Karen Tam was the winner of the Prix Giverny Capital 2021 awarded by the Fondation Giverny pour l’art contemporain and was a finalist for the 2017 Prix Louis-Comtois, a finalist for the 2016 Prix en art actuel from the Musée national des beaux-arts de Québec, and long-listed for the 2010 and 2016 Sobey Art Award.

Karen Tam holds an MFA in Sculpture (School of the Art Institute of Chicago) and a PhD in Cultural Studies (Goldsmiths, University of London). She is the Adjunct Curator at Griffin Art Projects and is a contributor to the publication Asia Collections outside Asia: Questioning Artefacts, Cultures and Identities in the Museum (2020) edited by Iside Carbone and Helen Wang, and to Alison Hulme’s (ed.) book, The Changing Landscape of China’s Consumerism (2014). Her work is in private, corporate and museum collections in Canada, the United States, Ireland and the United Kingdom. She is represented by Galerie Hugues Charbonneau.