Mapping Memory
Mapping Memory Project
Mapping Memory is an ongoing community art project by artist Don Kwan which explores the cultural and historical landscape of Chinatown's across Canada through archival work, visual installations and storytelling. The project responds to the absence of formal archives by gathering personal narratives, memories and images that reflect the lived experiences of residents past and present. Rooted in themes of cultural memory, resilience and belonging, Mapping Memory is both a creative act and a form of resistance against erasure. By mapping these untold stories, Kwan creates a living archive that affirms the significance of immigrant histories and the enduring legacy of Chinatowns as a site of identity, care, community and belonging.
Veneratiuon Monument, a story of Memory and Connection . 2026
Growing up, I knew that working in a Chinese laundry was difficult. At a very young
age, I understood it was mostly men and there were long hours, sacrifice and hardship involved, but I knew very little about the broader history of who those men were and why they ended up working in laundries. My maternal grandfather spent most of his adult life as a laundryman and died the year I was born. I never had the chance to know him. When I began researching his life, I wanted to understand not only his story, but also the history of Chinese laundries in Ottawa and across Canada.
Whenever I get a chance to travel, I always try to connect with, support and learn the histories of the Chinese community in the places I visit. In 2023, I was invited to participate in the Bonavista Biennale in Newfoundland. I had several potential exhibition sites, and one option was to activate a Chinese restaurant in Trinity Bay. Unfortunately, exhibiting there didn't work out and I ended up activating several other sites on the ROCK, but I remained eager to continue exploring Newfoundland and learn more about its Chinese Canadian history. During my exploration, I came across The Last Chinese Laundry, a 1987 documentary film made by the Memorial University of Newfoundland. The film tells the story of early Chinese immigrants in St. John’s, Newfoundland, centering on William Seto Ping, who operated what was then the last traditional Chinese hand laundry on the island.
For the first time, I encountered a Chinese Canadian laundryman speaking directly about his experience on film. His name was William Seto Ping. One sentence he said really resonated with me.
“I used the tears to wash the laundry”
Those words captured something I had already understood about the labor and hardship of laundry work. But hearing William Seto Ping speak those words in his own voice made that history more real and deeply personal.
That discovery led me to his grandson, William Ping Jr., the author of Hollow Bamboo. After reading his book, I reached out to him on Instagram.
“Just finished reading your book. Hollow Bamboo really resonated with me, congrats!!!”
William responded, and we made a plan to meet someday.Two years later, in August 2025, I returned to Newfoundland for a research project and as a guest speaker for the Bonavista Biennale. I reached out to William again. We met for breakfast and talked about family, life in St. John’s, and Chinese-Canadian history. He suggested places I should visit, including new and old cemeteries where members of the Chinese community were buried. I left Newfoundland grateful for our meeting,
carrying the feeling that our paths would cross again.
Not long after, curator Mireille Eagan in 2026 invited me back to St. John’s to participate in An Atlas of Uncertainty at The Rooms, where I would present Veneration Monument, an immersive audio-visual sculpture installation bringing together moving images, found objects and looped audio to explore diasporic memory, ancestral veneration and cultural presence, with particular attention to Chinese Canadian histories.
I wanted to engage with the Chinese community and history of St. John’s, ensuring that the artwork responded directly to the place, its past and the possibilities of its future. So, I reached out to William once again. This time, I invited William and the Ping family to participate in my art installation by contributing an object of their choosing. I left the invitation open, allowing them to decide what they felt would be meaningful to include. I expected perhaps a family photograph, a family heirloom, or another artifact that held personal significance for them.
A few weeks passed, and when I finally heard back from William and his family, they offered to include their grandfather’s flat iron from their family’s 1930s intergenerational business, the Snow White Laundry. It was one of the last Chinese laundries to close in St. John’s, and the one his grandfather in the documentary spoke so deeply about. It was an incredible honor to have such an important historical artifact become part of my art installation.
During the installation week, I spent a few days in The Rooms and Memorial University of Newfoundland Archives, flipping through historical documents and photos to find inspiration and ways to integrate them into my art. I decided to layer my own family photos with historical pictures from Newfoundland's Chinese Islander community, weaving them together like postcard sized tapestry’s. I placed these images among the keys of a typewriter to connect with the storytelling, "love letter" aspect of the work.
I’m still in awe to think that art can connect people across time, across generations and across this land, from coast to coast to coast.
So Nui. Yet Keen Seniors' Day Centre. Ottawa Chinatown. 2024
So Nui . Yet Keen Seniors' Day Centre . Ottawa Chinatown . 2024.
The Hop Hing old store 1975“
"I owned the building with my mother. After it was renovated, my husband and I opened the Chinese grocery store in 1975. We lived in the back of the store. At the time people were friendlier with each other. There were newcomers who didn't know how to cook so I would teach them. Everyone helped each other. The shop ran until 1985 when we leased the business. Later we renovated the store and opened the Gloucester Restaurant & Bakery.” So Nui.
Rainbow 1 hour Photo 1985 - 1990 (Pink Panda Video Centre)
Currently occupying the location in this photo (above) is the Miam Miam General Store. But at one point in time, The Rainbow 1 hour Photo Centre was the business next to my families intergenerational restaurant of over 50 years, The Shanghai Restaurant. Long time resident So Nui rented this space to open a photo shop. “The owner was the same as the Yang Sheng's owner." So Nui had this photo shop from 1985 until 1990. At the time, it was the only photo shop in Chinatown. In the photo: Sue's husband, Sue's nephew, Nephew's wife, Sue's sister-in-law.
Gloucester Restaurant & Bakery and Rainbow 1 Hour Photo 1991
This shop opened in 1991 . “We had the photo shop in the basement. It was also a franchise VHS rental shop. On the ground floor we sold cakes and Chinese buns. We ran this shop until 2005 when I retired. I was the person in the red sweater inside the shop. We sold the space later and it is now a pho restaurant.” So Nui