The ‘City of Rich Gate’ is a Chinese translation for the name of the City of Richmond, British Columbia, Canada and for many Chinese immigrants this city represents the promise of a better homeland. The concept of rich gate represents an interstitial space formed by the act of people’s passing. It is the space between both material places and cultural social ones. The gate is marked by personal stories: desire, disappointment, subversion and acceptance. It is fabricated by both social ideology and by individual use. This space possesses power to bridge and separate.
The City of Rich Gate is a Research and Creation within Community-Engaged Art Practices. Researching and working with six immigration families in the Richmond area, Gu Xiong and Ruth Beer, two internationally and nationally recognized visual artists, and Rita Irwin and Kit Grauer, two nationally and internationally recognized visual arts educators, organized this project in order to evoke discussion on hybrid notions of place, history, identity formation and cultural transformation.
The artist gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada as well as his research team.
The album below is a selective collection of this exhibition emphasizing on Gu Xiong’s work.
“The City of Rich Gate III,” a public art installation, group exhibition at Richmond City Hall, the Richmond Cultural Centre and bus shelters in the city of Richmond, BC, Canada, 2007
Richmond City Hall Installation
Banner Installation
Bus Shelter