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The creator of a public art installation that commemorates Nanaimo, B.C.’s former Chinatowns says she’s pleased the city has taken steps towards purchasing the piece as part of its permanent collection.
Jackie Wong is the rural Nanaimo-area artist behind Lost Intersections, an installation of three 18-by-18 inch neon signs with the numbers one, two and three on them in Chinese characters.
“I’m quite happy about it,” Wong said. “There was so much support, enthusiasm in the community.”
Each of three pieces is currently a temporary five-year installation at the site of the city’s three former Chinatowns. According to the website for the installation, the city’s first two Chinatowns were relocated as the city grew and those areas become more desirable, and the third burned down in 1960.
Nanaimo’s finance committee approved the purchase at a meeting on Wednesday. The final decision will still need to be approved at a regular council meeting.
‘A great addition to public art’
Coun. Hilary Eastmure first put forward the motion earlier this year for staff to report back on what would be required to purchase the installation permanently.
A staff report shared at Wednesday’s meeting indicated the cost would be $15,000 — the remainder of the city’s public art budget for the year.
Eastmure said she put forward the motion after hearing from several groups in Nanaimo who supported purchasing the installation permanently, including the Nanaimo Chinese Cultural Society and the Nanaimo Freemasons Society.
Another piece of the installation. Each one is placed at the location of one of Nanaimo’s former Chinatowns. (City of Nanaimo/Facebook)
Vancouver Island University professor emerita Imogene Lim says she also told council she supported the purchase.
“I am very pleased to hear that Jackie Wong’s Lost Intersections will be made permanent,” Lim said.
“I have always thought, as soon as I saw it, that it would be a great addition to public art, but also to mark the fact that Nanaimo had a vibrant Chinatown.”
Lim says she has worked for years to commemorate Nanaimo’s Chinatown, which she says once was one of the biggest and oldest in Canada.
“Chinese Canadian history is Canadian history,” she said. “That’s also an important thing to remind people.”
Lim says she thinks the pieces are intriguing, and leads those looking at them to wonder what they’re about. A QR code takes the viewer to a website with information about each location of Nanaimo’s Chinatown.
Wong, an artist who grew up in Vancouver and whose parents were born in Chinatowns in Victoria and Vancouver, says that was her intention when designing the installation.
“I wanted to make this project full of inquiry, full of people having to dig a little deeper and then realizing why we’re asking them to dig a little deeper to recognize, you know, the contribution of the Chinese community in Nanaimo,” she said.
The first sign can be viewed at Esplanade and Victoria Crescent, the second at View Street and Bing Kee Street and the third at Pine Street and Hecate Street.