Free Community Day: Celebrate Chinese American History and Culture (SF)

Submitted by the Event Organizer

Join us for a celebration of Chinese American history and culture as we commemorate the closing of our exhibition Chinese Pioneers: Power and Politics in Exclusion Era Photographs. Participate in hands-on activities for all ages and visit our library for an exclusive show-and-tell featuring collections related to Chinese American history. 

Activities:

Chinese Calligraphy Drop-In Workshop 

Chinese calligraphic writing goes back over 5,000 years and is still in use today. Artist-instructor Pauline Tsui tells the story of how Chinese writing evolved from pictographs into various character styles. Chinese calligraphy is not only an art form that goes hand-in-hand with painting and poetry, its practice is also a mindful approach to improving one’s focus and creativity. Tsui will share stories and demonstrate the Dao of Calligraphy—the art of writing beautiful characters.

Learn to write Chinese characters and bring home a piece of art to energize your wall space. In Tsui’s drop-in, hands-on Chinese calligraphy workshop, participants will learn basic strokes and simple character-phrases. Chinese and non-Chinese participants of all ages and levels are welcome. 

Photography Activities

Learn what it was like to produce pictures in the nineteenth century before modern cameras. Artist Susan L. Sternberg will lead two photography art activities, designed to complement the Chinese Pioneers exhibition:

Make a Camera Obscura
Learn how to make a rudimentary camera, much like the first cameras used at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The camera obscura or pinhole camera, consists of a box with a tiny hole (pinhole) which utilizes a natural optical phenomenon (pinhole phenomenon) to project and capture the image.

Make Photos without a Camera
Learn how to make a photograph without using a camera, known as a photogram, through a photographic printing process called cyanotype. Cyanotype is one of the oldest photographic printing processes in the history of photography. Cyanotype photograms utilize the power of the sun to produce prints that turn out in a distinctive dark greenish-blue (cyan).

North Baker Research Library Show and Tell

CHS holds extensive collections related to Chinese American history.  Pop in to CHS’s North Baker Research Library to view some special items from our Chinese American collections. Director of Library & Archives, Frances Kaplan, will be on hand to tell you more about them.

Partners: 

Chinese Historical Society of America

Disclaimer: Please double check event information with the event organizer as events can be canceled, details can change after they are added to our calendar, and errors do occur.