A Seat at the Table -2020 Exhibition at Museum of Vancouver and Chinatown
Museum exhibits are more successful when developed with a diverse range of partners and individual stakeholders. Collaborative exhibits reach wider audiences and serve their communities better. Take the 2020 exhibit A Seat at the Table – Chinese Immigration and British Columbia for example. This exhibition, presented by the Museum of Vancouver and the University of British Columbia, took form with co-curators, designers and an advisory committee which Michelle, founder of Mighty Museum, was a member.
The exhibition is also connected to a larger initiative. Throughout 2019, the Province of BC engaged in community consultations to develop a Chinese Canadian Museum. On July 16, 2020 the Province of BC announced $10 million to establish a Chinese Canadian Museum with a provincial hub in Vancouver’s Chinatown as well as multiple regional hubs and spokes throughout BC.
“A Seat at the Table is an opportunity to consider the contributions that Chinese migrants and their descendants have made to British Columbia, a province built from the interaction of successive and concurrent waves of migration and uninterrupted occupation by Indigenous peoples.” – Museum of Vancouver web page
A Seat at the Table has two locations, the Hon Hsing Building in Vancouver’s Chinatown this summer and the Museum of Vancouver this fall.