A Plot of One’s Own
A Plot of One’s Own 一亩三分地 presents extraordinary contributions from ten Chinese diasporic artists alongside the Chinese American Museum of Chicago’s research and archives. Through artworks that span painting, drawing, photography, printmaking, sculpture, installation, artist’s books, video, cartography, multimedia and living installation, this exhibition reflects on the beauty and savvy behind the “farm-gardens” seen all around Chicago’s Chinatown and Chinese American communities across the diaspora.
While the pop-culture lens of an American Chinatown is defined by dragons, pagodas, and red-lacquered replicas of Chinese-ness meant as a transportative portal to the Far East of the American imagination, this group exhibition refocuses our gaze with a look into an oft-overlooked (yet ubiquitous) cultural phenomenon of spontaneous domestic farming and guerilla gardens.
Despite a lack of green space in many urban environments, the presence of fresh produce and backyard jungles are nevertheless a defining marker of Chinese communities around the world. Contextualized by archival materials and artifacts from the CAMOC Collection, the artworks of Andy Chan, Yi Cynthia Chen, Mel Chin, Jenie Gao, Xingyu Huang, Mari Miller, Hương Ngô, Stephanie H. Shih, Connie Zheng, and Yu-Wen Wu invite a multi-faceted exploration of the intimate relationship between these gardens with land use, food sovereignty, civic planning, globalization, neighborhood ecosystems, memory, and the many versions we make of house and home.
A Plot of One’s Own 一亩三分地 will show at CAMOC | Chinese American Museum of Chicago September 19, 2026 – August 31, 2027
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 19, 2026, 2:00pm – 5:00pm
- Andy Hoi-Csiu Chan
- Yi Cynthia Chen
- Mel Chin
- Jenie Gao
- Xingyu Huang
- Mari Miller
- Hương Ngô
- Stephanie H. Shih
- Connie Zheng
- Yu-Wen Wu
