New York museum stages Windows for Chinatown show

NEW YORK－The New York City-based Museum of Chinese in America launched its latest exhibition, Windows for Chinatown, and a temporary space for its MOCA Workshop on Saturday.

The event aims to engage visitors since the museum remains closed to the public, MOCA director for collections and research Yue Ma says.

MOCA has transformed its windows into exhibition spaces reflecting Chinatown history, anti-Asian racism during the COVID-19 pandemic and recent uprisings for racial justice.

Windows for Chinatown "draws from MOCA's storied national archive of Chinese American history, in addition to highlighting new acquisition projects, such as the OneWorld COVID-19 Collection", the museum says.

Visitors can also participate in MOCA Workshop, a replacement of its Collections and Research Center that was damaged in a fire at another site in January.

The MOCA Workshop will not only house over 85,000 artifacts that document Chinese experiences in the United States but also serve as a publicly accessible research space that invites hands-on engagement with collections there, MOCA says.

Artists, researchers, students and the public can participate in research at the workshop, where artifacts will be preserved, restored and digitized, Ma explains.

"As many people care about the status of the Collections and Research Center, MOCA Workshop would show … artifacts rescued from the fire," Ma says.

Ma adds that the vast majority of the salvaged items require restoration, for which costs assessments are underway.

Up to 5 percent of the center's items were completely destroyed in the blaze, Ma says.

In addition to a companion website, MOCA also plans to launch an educational campaign on social media as part of its 40th-anniversary celebration.

MOCA was founded in 1980, and is dedicated to preserving and presenting the history, culture and diverse experiences of people of Chinese descent in the US.