Chinatown Speculative Futures with Linda Zhang

Join Linda Zhang, professor in the School of Interior Design at Ryerson University in Toronto ON, live over Zoom to learn about the story and process behind her recent project ChinaTOwn, a multi-player board game that prompts participants to put their heads together to negotiate what is worth including in a community space. Zhang partnered with research technology officer in Ryerson’s Library Collaboratory, Jimmy Tran, to fly drones over Toronto’s Chinatown, photographing 99 individual buildings and subsequently turning each one into a board-game sized model. To play the game, participants must select only 12 of the 99 buildings to include in their hand-picked Chinatown. Centred on questions of heritage preservation within the community, ChinaTOwn asks players to have a conversation about what is important to them and the future of their community, a topic that is relevant now more than ever as Chinatown’s across the country face unprecedented challenges and change.