Part 2: Co-Creation Workshops
Image Description: Screencap of a pink Google Slides page, titled “What is Care?” surrounded by ResLab participant text responses and Mandarin translation.
What does collective care mean? How do we care for and attend to our communities? How can public spaces in Chinatown make residents feel more seen, included, and safe? What are the possibilities when we dream and imagine together as a community?
From May through July, we jumped into eight workshops with our artist-resident teams, facilitated by Leslie Condon and Lily Xie, an artist from the inaugural 2019 ResLab cohort and co-facilitator on behalf of Asian Community Development Corporation (ACDC). Additionally, May Lui from ACDC and I provided interpretation while Heang Rubin, our ResLab community storyteller, took notes. Every other Friday, as the golden hour transitioned into night, we learned with each other and listened to one another’s stories. The histories of care in Chinatown and Mary Soo Hoo Park grounded our conversations.
Heang described a scene below from our third workshop in May:
The cohort was asked, “What do we want to see at Mary Soo Hoo Park?” Cass responded that she wanted to see good things for seniors, relaxed, and engaging in cultural activities. Clare said she wanted to see other Asian Americans. Kathy, too, wanted to see elders playing games and children with their caretakers. Sheila echoed the focus on elders and a shout-out to folks who are playing games. Yuko turned the conversation to young people, like college students and multi-generational interactions. Elaine talked about the seniors and she is excited for the potential of storytelling in that space. Before the conversation wrapped up, Amy put in the need for “children playing games.” (May 28th, 2021).
Caption: Participants freewrite to the prompt, “what would you want Mary Soo Hoo Park to look like in 1000 years?” During the share-out, Sheila shares her vision of the park in 3021 and asks, “what stays and what goes?” For her, the iconic Chinatown Gate stays, but she also adds flying lanterns, trees, lots of people and less cars, and an amphitheater.
Image Description: Screencap of ResLab participants on Zoom workshop on May 28th, spotlighting Sheila showing a colorful page from her notebook.
Caption: In breakout rooms, teams brainstormed the community needs and stories they wanted to tell. Clean air, public amenities, and family friendly equipment were frequent topics.
Image description/caption: Screencap of Yuko, Kathy, Amy, and Elaine’s slide deck brainstorm page, from Residence Lab's virtual workshop.