Bleached by the Sun: Perspectives on Chinatown | Nanaimo Art Gallery

Bleached by the Sun: Perspectives on Chinatown

January 24, 2026 – March 22, 2026

Curated by: Jesse Birch and Imogene Lim

Featured Artists: Fred Herzog, Kin Jung, Karen Tam, Betty Wong, Jackie Wong, and Charlotte Zhang

Everyone is welcome to join Nanaimo Art Gallery for a free opening weekend celebration event:

Opening Reception | Friday, January 23rd, 7 – 9 pm

Community Gathering | Saturday, January 24th, 1 – 2:30 pm

(Nanaimo, BC) Bleached by the Sun: Perspectives on Chinatown is an exhibition that responds to the histories and legacies of Nanaimo’s four former Chinatowns through artworks and photographs. The exhibition features the viewpoints of three artists who documented Nanaimo’s third Chinatown while it was still standing, and three contemporary artists who respond to Nanaimo’s Chinatowns through textile installation, painting and video, and consider what it means to reflect on these lost sites from the present moment.

Nanaimo Art Gallery’s Curator Jesse Birch shares the significance of bringing historic and contemporary artists together to help tell the story of Nanaimo’s Chinatowns: “All six artists in the exhibition speak to Nanaimo’s former Chinatowns from different perspectives. The three historic artists all represent Chinatown with a documentary approach; working from lived experience, as residents or visitors, and depicting fragmented, fleeting moments. The contemporary artists are able to address these places more broadly with the insights that come with time to reflect, but they also acknowledge that their perspectives are informed by gaps and distortions in historical memory, and foreground their own artistic points of view.”

Nanaimo Art Gallery is open from Tuesdays to Saturdays 10 am – 5 pm and Sundays from 12 – 5 pm. Admission is by donation. Weekly Friday lunchtime tours for Bleached by the Sun will be available. The tours are $5 per person or free for members.

More information about the artists and their works in Bleached by the Sun: Perspectives on Chinatown can be found on Nanaimo Art Gallery’s website.