This event has in-person locations in both Washington DC and Sacramento. Please be sure to check the location when registering for this event.

Join us for a conversation with Chinese diasporic artists Bz Zhang, Evelyn Hang Yin, Connie Zheng, and SK Tsang as they share their current and past work and reflect on how identity shapes the stories we tell. Each artist will discuss how they’ve navigated (or worked outside of) historical institutions and art spaces to create work that challenges inherited narratives and imagines new futures for Chinese diasporic communities in the United States. This discussion will be followed by an in-person art activity.

This event is held in collaboration with the GIVE FACE 给面子 (Gěimiànzi) exhibition and the Yolo County Historic Collection.

GIVE FACE 给面子 (Gěimiànzi) is an interdisciplinary exhibition unearthing and regrounding past, present, and future narratives of Chinese diaspora in the Sacramento Valley in the sweeping and ever-expanding story of what we currently call California. Historical objects trace the impact of Chinese Americans on Yolo County through the things they left behind, while contemporary artworks woven throughout the exhibit call our attention to their lived experiences, intimacies, and complexities. Using both documentation and speculation, artist Bz Zhang’s work creates dialog between Western ideas and a Chinese-diasporic cultural inheritance and offers ways to “give face” to (that is, to honor or show due respect for) Chinese ancestors in the US West. The stories of Chinese diaspora in Yolo County and the US West span oceans and continents, and their contributions transcend our infrastructures (from railways to agriculture) into the social and cultural fabric of our nation.

The Yolo County Historical Collection is comprised of 11,000 objects which date from the 1830s to the 1930s. The collection includes textiles, agricultural equipment, paintings, archival materials, ephemera, photographs, archaeological items, tools, ceramics, household items, furniture, and personal items. This collection illustrates what life was like for early Yolo County residents. The Yolo County Historical Collection is displayed at the Gibson House and at Yolo County Library Branches.

Can’t make it in person? Join via Zoom! Register here: https://yolocounty.zoom.us/j/89760976441

If you are registering for Washington DC, please use this link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1987132798693?aff=oddtdtcreator

If you are registering for Sacramento, please use this link: https://events.yolocountylibrary.org/event/16699013