Exhibition “Tiny Grains: Chinatown Forever Changed, Forever Changing”
And time is telling
Only how long it takes
Layer after layer
As our beauty unfolds
Until our captor, we’ll hold
In peril
A grain
A tiny grain of sand
— “Yellow Pearl” by Chris Kando Iijima and Joanne Nobuko Miyamoto
During the shutdown of 2020, Edward Cheng roamed the streets of Chinatown with his camera. Businesses were closed. Work had dried up. There was nothing else to do. On these treks, he ran into people he knew. He saw the same friends, acquaintances, and community members time and again. Eventually, he asked to photograph them.
TINY GRAINS is at once local and universal. While the photographs capture one particular neighborhood (and in some cases one particular cross street) during one particular, unprecedented time, the stories they tell go beyond. They are stories of community and tradition. Joy in the face of adversity. Striving toward the future in an uncertain present.
The exhibition also honors the past. In 1972, Basement Workshop created Yellow Pearl, a collective work built around Chris Iijima, Nobuko Miyamoto, and Charlie Chin’s songbook for the Asian American activist movement. TINY GRAINS is an homage to those early, groundbreaking days of that movement and the seminal pioneers who are still active today.
Chinatown has long been plagued by injustice, underrepresentation, and xenophobia. The pandemic only heightened these issues. Even as the neighborhood returns to “normalcy,” Cheng still feels their weight. Each photograph he takes lightens that weight. Each shopkeeper and grocery shopper. Each artist and activist. Each person comes together with others to share a drink or a meal, a laugh or a cry. To listen to stories and play music. To dance in the streets. Each person has a grain of sand.
The accompanying book is available now.
About the Artist
A lifelong New Yorker, Edward Cheng is a freelance computer programmer and seasoned globetrotting backpacker. As a photographer, he works on long-term projects documenting the Asian American experience in Lower Manhattan’s Chinatown, Día de los Muertos in Mexico, and Christian Holy Weeks and Easters around the world.
Cheng is a teaching assistant and fixture at the International Center of Photography, where he regularly assists darkroom masters Steve Anchell, Brian Young, and Chuck Kelton. He regularly exhibits in Manhattan’s Chinatown, including at Think! Chinatown, Souls of New York, and at the Pearl River Mart Gallery.
He takes his mezcal oaxaqueño neat, his coffee black, and his bed at three.
About Pearl River Mart
Pearl River Mart was founded as a “friendship store” in 1971. The iconic Asian emporium has locations in New York City’s SoHo district and the popular Chelsea Market with both a retail outlet and Pearl River Mart Foods. From home furnishings to fashion to snacks and everything in between, the store features one-of-a-kind items imported from Asia, as well as innovative merchandise designed and created by Asian Americans. A beloved destination for people from all over the globe, Pearl River has become symbolic of the uniqueness, authenticity, and multiculturalism of New York City. Visit the website and follow on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.
About the Pearl River Mart Gallery
The Pearl River Mart gallery features curated exhibitions with local artists from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds. Previous artists include sculptor Warren King; New Yorker magazine cartoonists Amy Hwang, Jeremy Nguyen, Suerynn Lee, Evan Hahn, and more; photographers Louis Chan, Hiroyuki Ito, and Corky Lee; painters Julia Chon, Arlan Huang, Kam Mak; illustrators Sammy Yuen, Nancy Pappas, Jerry Ma, Yumi Sakugawa, and Felicia Liang; and multimedia artists Wiena Lin, Ben Sloat, and Xin Song.
Recent exhibitions include “Reunion: Food as Culture, Community, and Coming Home” curated by Christine Wong; “Spirit Dreams: Where Ancestors Come to Speak” by Julia Chon; “Just Between Us: From the Archives of Arlan Huang” curated by Danielle Wu and Howie Chen; “Our Roots Run Deep: Finding Home in Chinatown” by Warren King; “Drawn Together: Stories of Resilience and Renewal in NYC CHinatown” by Sammy Yuen; “Soft Solidarity (SoS): Uniting to Protect, Empower, and Heal,” a group show of AAPI women artists; “Heartmind: Portraits from the Bob Eng Lee and Asian American Arts Centre Collections,” presented in collaboration with nonprofit arts organization Think!Chinatown; “Corky Lee on My Mind: A Photographic Tribute,” dedicated to the legendary photographer and activist Corky Lee (1947–2021).
Time: 6:00-8:00 pm EDT
Free!
