This past summer (2021) I collaboration with Joy Mao, an artist and fashion designer on a window display collaboration for Wing on Wo’s storefront. Joy was the 2021 Wing on Wo Project (W.O.W.) artist-in-resident who made a beautiful Bai Jia Yi, a traditional Chinese patchwork garment from Chinese folk arts. It holds stories memories from garment workers.
Joy asked me to contribute a companion piece for the window display. I worked with my mom, Sau Kwan Yu, a former garment worker who worked for 35+ years in NYC's garment factories (mainly in NYC's Chinatown) on this display. We carefully curated a selection of ephemera - garments she sewed, patterns, fabrics, assortment of check stubs, sewing machine feet, zippers, buttons and a traditional radio that would broadcast one of the only Cantonese-language radio stations in NYC in the 1990s. Most factories would have this station playing.
This collaboration will be up on display until mid-August at 26 Mott St.in @wingonwoandco window display. They also just reopened their store. Wing on Wo is the oldest continuously open store in Chinatown - they have been at this current location for over 100 years. Chinatown small businesses have been hit hard by this pandemic so hopefully folks can come check out the display and store!
