D U Y E N N G U Y E N
Memory in Suspensionn
WHAT
WHERE
Installation
Toronto
What do we choose to remember? What is keeping these memories alive? How are memories constructed out of fragments of history?
The installation looks at these questions through the struggles faced by the first Chinese immigrants in Toronto in establishing a community. Chinatowns have been displaced and are still on the move from location to location due to gentrification. Memory in Suspension looks at Sam Ching who was the first Chinese immigrant to settle in Toronto, opening Sam Ching and Company laundry at 9 Adelaide East, however very little information on these first businesses exist today.
Layers of History
A layered enclosure presents a fragmented history of the first Chinese businesses and the evolution of the spaces through time. The exterior of the installation begins at the present day, with each layer becoming more obscured as time begins to overwrite history. Voids on the textiles create a pattern taken from archival images and photographs from four moments in history. Each layer of hung fabric leads the viewer back in time to the very first Chinese business that has been reconstructed from a
composite of records to rebuild a memory of a space that was previously remembered in fragments. This three-dimensional store is suspended at the heart of the space within a stretched cocoon of fabric, dangling as if it could be dropped at any moment, signifying the fragile nature of memory.
Looking from past to present, the interior fabric layer first examines imagery of storefronts of the first Chinese businesses in Toronto. The
next layers show the great Toronto fire of 1904, which destroyed some of the scattered Chinese businesses in the area. After the fire, the area went through a process of gentrification, which is reflected through aerial photographs from the 1950s cut into the fabric. The outermost layer shows the facades which line the present-day courtyard where the first laundry once stood.
