Gentrification Party

aiya! 合作社 collective

Are you happy and excited about the removal of the Harbin Gate? We are! Across the street from the construction site, we’re throwing a party to celebrate all the benefits gentrification will bring us! Say goodbye to Chinatown and hello to the Quarters! Come dance, consume a smashed Harbin Gate cake, commemorate this good time at the Gentrification Photo Booth, send hellos to your friends and thank you notes to capitalism, play mah-jong so that you feel like you’re doing something authentically Chinese, and soak in the kitschy décor reused from last week’s mid-autumn festival.

(Satire party hours are 7pm-10pm; 10pm-7am we occupy space in the genuine spirit of resistance.)

Artist Bio

aiya! 合作社 is an artist collective made up of Edmonton Chinese artists and Chinatown community members who are creating dialogue and understanding about the changes of Edmonton’s Chinatown.

Making a safe space in Edmonton for contemporary Chinese artists, we come together to gather, to honour our heritage and identity, to challenge perceptions and stereotypes, to heal, to acknowledge and work to understand our role as racialized settlers, and to collaborate for the purpose of conditioning space for the development of dialogue centred around Chinese Canadian/Asian diaspora concerns. As a new collective of Chinese Canadian artists, our work is driven by the fundamental belief that collaboration with and accountability to communities impacted by racial, social, and economic inequities must be central to our cultural and art making process.

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