March 1, 2023-June 23, 2023
Generation Chinatown is a youth artist in residence program, designed to foster a learning space for high school aged youth to explore a diverse range of creative practices, build leadership skills, and create art activations to enhance neighborhood recovery and foster youth innovation. The CCC believes the arts is a powerful force in community development and this starts with building creative capacity to inspire different generations to invest in their neighborhood’s future through arts and culture.
The Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco (CCC) presented "RISE: A Youth Art Exhibition" at 41 Ross storefront studio, featuring Generation Chinatown artists:
Bugg, Dana, Eric, Itzci, Jennifer, MiCAHHH, and Sophia.
RISE centers on the perspective of seven San Francisco-raised high school youth and their dedication to healing, resilience, and empowerment. It is a portrait of how their relationships with family, friends, neighborhood[s], and life experiences inform their present. From exploring the multiple parts of their identities, uplifting queer history and mythologies to examining what building a sense of home means, these rising artists are defining their own narratives to understand both who they are and who they are becoming.
At the June 9th opening event for RISE: A Youth Art Exhibition for Generation Chinatown out of 41 Ross, the youth artists were met with an outpouring of support from community members. Over 300 attendees were counted during the two hour event. During the event Generation Chinatown youth artists had the opportunity to interact with guests by sharing about their artworks, answering questions and also giving their own individual speeches at the beginning of the event. While preparing the exhibition for installation, many community members expressed interest in learning about the 41 Ross youth artist in residence program and watching the youth artists’ process unfold. After the opening night, an estimated one thousand visitors viewed the exhibition at 41 Ross which was open for two weeks after the showcase event.
In addition: A broad range of people learned about the program through news media coverage of the showcase: KTSF Channel 8, KQED, Sing Tao (with potential viewership of 105,000 viewers). One visitor from the community came during the gallery hours after the final exhibition and mentioned she had recognized our location from the media segment on KTSF. The media outlets that highlighted Generation Chinatown helped expand the scope of our programming beyond the local neighborhood, but the greater San Francisco/Bay Area community.