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The Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco (or CCC) (;
Jyutping Jyutping is a romanisation system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong (LSHK), an academic group, in 1993. Its formal name is the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme. The LSHK advocates for ...
: ''Gau6gam1saan1 Zung1waa4 Man4faa3 Zung1sam1'') is a community-based,
non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
organization established in 1965 as the operations center of the Chinese Culture Foundation located in
Hilton San Francisco Financial District The Hilton San Francisco Financial District (originally the Holiday Inn Financial District but often referred to as the Holiday Inn Chinatown) is a skyscraper hotel located east across Kearny Street from Portsmouth Square on the border between t ...
, at 750 Kearny Street, 3rd Floor, San Francisco, California, United States. The CCC's activities have shifted focus throughout its existence. In the 2010s the center focused on
contemporary art Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic com ...
exhibitions and interventions, under the vestige of the CCC Visual Arts Center, as well as on radical,
social justice Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals fu ...
education initiatives, under the vestige of the Him Mark Lai Learning Center.


Overview

The facilities of the center, totaling 20,000 square feet (1,900 m2), include a 299-seat auditorium, a 2,935-square-foot (272.7 m2) gallery, a gallery shop,
classroom A classroom or schoolroom is a learning space in which both children and adults learn. Classrooms are found in educational institutions of all kinds, ranging from preschools to universities, and may also be found in other places where education ...
, and
office An office is a space where an Organization, organization's employees perform Business administration, administrative Work (human activity), work in order to support and realize objects and Goals, plans, action theory, goals of the organizati ...
s. It is located between
Chinatown A Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Austra ...
and the
Financial District A financial district is usually a central area in a city where financial services firms such as banks, insurance companies and other related finance corporations have their head offices. In major cities, financial districts are often home to s ...
. Since 2020, Jenny Leung is the executive director. From 2009 to 2019, the executive director was Mabel Teng, a former member of the
San Francisco Board of Supervisors The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is the legislative body within the government of the City and County of San Francisco. Government and politics The City and County of San Francisco is a consolidated city-county, being simultaneously a c ...
and former a City Accessor-Recorder.


History


Founding

The city government put up city-owned land that formerly housed the Hall of Justice for sale. As a compromise, founder J.K. Choy struck a deal with the developer for a 20,000 square foot facility dedicated to community cultural activities. The Chinese Culture Foundation of San Francisco incorporated on October 15, 1965. Another compromise led to the modification of the planned
Portsmouth Square pedestrian bridge The Portsmouth Square pedestrian bridge is a prominent architectural landmark in Chinatown, San Francisco that spans over Kearny Street from Portsmouth Square to the second floor and third floor of the Hilton San Francisco Financial District ho ...
to accommodate the future activities. Holiday Inn was completed in January 1971, while the bridge was completed in August 1971. After some political tensions between CCF and the heavily Nationalist majority faction in Chinatown, work began on the Chinese Culture Center facilities on January 27, 1973.


Beginning operations

Early activities were marked by a desire to be non-controversial and non-political because of tense Taiwanese-PRC relations and factions within Chinatown. The center began hosting workshops and classes on Mandarin language, folklore, martial arts, music, painting and calligraphy, crafts, drama, dance, and shadow play. It also held celebrations of the Spring Festival and
Mid-Autumn Festival The Mid-Autumn Festival (Chinese: / ), also known as the Moon Festival or Mooncake Festival, is a traditional festival celebrated in Chinese culture. Similar holidays are celebrated in Japan (), Korea (), Vietnam (), and other countries in Eas ...
. Docent-guided tours of Chinatown began in 1974. Some of the CCC's early art programs were coordinated with local museums, such as the
Asian Art Museum of San Francisco The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco – Chong-Moon Lee Center for Asian Art and Culture"About"
Asian Art Museum website. ...
.


1980s and 1990s

1989, CCC received a grant to implement an annual program called ''In Search of Roots''. Each year, ten American-born Chinese youth interns who wished to trace their ancestries to the
Pearl River Delta The Pearl River Delta Metropolitan Region (PRD; ; pt, Delta do Rio das Pérolas (DRP)) is the low-lying area surrounding the Pearl River estuary, where the Pearl River flows into the South China Sea. Referred to as the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Mac ...
, under CCC guidance, researched their family histories, visited their ancestral villages, and contributed findings to an annual CCC exhibit. Following relaxation of US-PRC relations, CCC began sponsoring public lectures on Chinese arts and culture by scholars. After the
Chinese economic reform The Chinese economic reform or reform and opening-up (), known in the West as the opening of China, is the program of economic reforms termed " Socialism with Chinese characteristics" and "socialist market economy" in the People's Republic of C ...
and democracy in the Republic of China on Taiwan, the
Two Chinas The term "Two Chinas" refers to the geopolitical situation where two political entities exist under the name "China". Background In 1912, the Xuantong Emperor abdicated as a result of the Xinhai Revolution, and the Republic of China was est ...
became less hostile, so older Chinatown organizations began to cooperate with the Chinese Culture Center in the 1990s.


Present-era

With the hire of Abby Chen as Program Director in 2008, the Chinese Culture Center began to focus solely on contemporary art, an initiative rebranded as the CCC Visual Arts Center. The center began publishing catalogues of its exhibitions for sale and archival purposes for archives such as
Asia Art Archive Asia Art Archive (AAA) is a nonprofit organisation based in Hong Kong which focuses on documenting the recent history of contemporary art in Asia within an international context. AAA incorporates material that members of local art communities ...
. CCC's education initiative was dedicated as the Him Mark Lai Learning Center in 2013. Focusing on community-based, socially-engaged art interventions, in 2013, CCC opened 41 Ross, a pop-up art gallery space in historic Ross Alley that promotes dialogue amongst artists and local residents. 41 Ross is operated in partnership with the Chinatown Community Development Center. CCC's public artwork, ''Sky Bridge,'' was honored as the "Best Public Art" of 2015 by KQED. In 2016, the Portsmouth Square Pedestrian Bridge was dedicated as the Rolland Lowe Bridge in honor of the Lowe family's patronage and strong support of CCC.


Arts programs


Exhibitions

In the CCC Visual Arts Center, CCC has produced over 100 quarterly, rotating gallery exhibitions of various styles, media, and modalities. These exhibitions are centered on the ''XianRui'' 鮮銳 Artist Excellence Series (also known as "Fresharp") curated by Abby Chen. ''XianRui鮮銳'' is an award-based solo exhibition that rewards innovative, mid-career, contemporary Chinese and Chinese-American artists. ''XianRui鮮銳'' has included: *
Beili Liu Beili Liu (; born 1974) is a Chinese-born US-based visual artist who makes large-scale, process-driven sculptural environments that examine themes of migration, cultural memory, materiality, labor, social and environmental concerns. Through unco ...
's "Lure" (2008): A series of installations of thousands of hand-coiled disks of red thread suspended from the ceiling, borrowing from the ancient Chinese legend of The Red Thread. *
Stella Zhang Stella Zhang ( zh, c=张爽; born 1965 in Beijing, China) is a Chinese contemporary artist whose practice ranges from painting to sculpture and installation. Zhang is notable for her strong feminist approach in art-making. Her work is described as ...
's "0 Viewpoint" (2010): Sculptural, monochromatic installations and sculptures exploring femininity, sexuality, and nationality. *
Zheng Chongbin Zheng may refer to: *Zheng (surname), Chinese surname (鄭, 郑, ''Zhèng'') *Zheng County, former name of Zhengzhou, capital of Henan, China *Guzheng (), a Chinese zither with bridges *Qin Shi Huang (259 BC – 210 BC), emperor of the Qin Dynasty, ...
's "White Ink" (2011): Fifteen new and site-specific large scale abstract ink paintings and video projections, innovating traditional Chinese ink painting. *
Summer Mei Ling Lee Summer is the hottest of the four temperate seasons, occurring after spring and before autumn. At or centred on the summer solstice, the earliest sunrise and latest sunset occurs, daylight hours are longest and dark hours are shortest, with ...
's "Into the Nearness of Distance" (2014): Experimental installation exploring and transcending complications of inter- and counter-relationships. ''"WOMEN我們"'', a traveling exhibition curated by the CCC's program director Abby Chen that examined feminist, queer, and gender-expansive arts-activism in contemporary China, opened in Shanghai in 2011, came to the CCC Visual Arts Center in 2012, and was exhibited in Miami in 2013. CCC's other exhibitions series include "Episode", which invites guest curators and artists to expand CCC's programmatic rhetoric, as well as "Present Tense", which gives platform to young, emerging artists.


Public site-based art

CCC's initiatives have focused on community-based arts in the form of public artworks, as well as arts-based interventions. Much of this site-based art is rooted in 41 Ross (in Ross Alley), CCC's pop-up, collaborative art space that opened in 2013. Notable public art projects include: * "Central Subway Public Art Project" (2013): A collection of murals by Justin Hoover in Wentworth Alley. * "Sky Bridge" (2015): A temporary public artwork by
Beili Liu Beili Liu (; born 1974) is a Chinese-born US-based visual artist who makes large-scale, process-driven sculptural environments that examine themes of migration, cultural memory, materiality, labor, social and environmental concerns. Through unco ...
consisting of 50,000 pieces of reflective mylar epoxied to the Lowe Pedestrian Bridge to reflect the sky. *"Liminal Space/Crossings" (2016) A public art installation of an ocean projected in Ross Alley by Summer Mei-Ling Lee. Notable arts-based interventions include: * "Occupy Shanghai Subway" (2012): A public intervention in which feminist activists donned artworks from WOMEN我們 and held signs in the subway to protest sexual harassment. * "San Francisco Chinatown Keywords School" (2013): A socially-engaged art project and relational aesthetics work by artist
Xu Tan Xu or XU may refer to: People and characters * Xu (surname), one of two Chinese surnames ( or /), transliterated as Xu in English * ǃXu, a name for the ǃKung group of Bushmen; may also refer to the ǃKung language or the ǃKung people * ǃXu ( ...
. Public space was transformed into a workshop for youth to collect, explore, and create "key words" via artistic analysis and creation. * "Sunrise" (2016): A space-based intervention that transforms the Rolland Lowe Pedestrian Bridge into a park with landscape design and a mosaic by Mik Gaspay.


Education and engagement programs

CCC's education initiative was dedicated as the Him Mark Lai Learning Center in 2013, serving as the hub for its tours, both Chinatown Walking Tours and California Roots Excursions, as well as lectures, which were rebranded as Thought Leader Seminars. Past seminar leaders include
Timmy Yip Tim Yip Kam-tim (; born 1967) is a Hong Kong art director and designer for fiction films. He is best known for his work on the 2000 martial arts film '' Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon'', for which he won an Academy Award for Best Art Direction ...
,
Gordon H. Chang Gordon Hsiao-shu Chang (; born 1948) is an American historian and writer. He is a professor and vice provost at Stanford University. Early life and education Born in British Hong Kong, Chang earned a degree in history from Princeton and even ...
, Yu Xinqiao, and Elizabeth Sinn. CCC has also continued to put on festivals for citywide audiences and Chinatown residents, activating Chinatown with political and artistic consciousness by inviting local artists to intervene in local spaces. These include the Chinatown Music Festival in late summer, the Spring Festival in the spring, and Dancing on Waverly in early fall.


See also

*
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) is a multi-disciplinary contemporary arts center in San Francisco, California, United States. Located in Yerba Buena Gardens, YBCA features visual art, performance, and film/video that celebrates local, natio ...
*
Museum of the African Diaspora The Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) is a contemporary art museum in San Francisco, California. MoAD holds exhibitions and presents artists exclusively of the African diaspora, one of only a few museums of its kind in the United States. Locate ...
*
Asian Art Museum of San Francisco The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco – Chong-Moon Lee Center for Asian Art and Culture"About"
Asian Art Museum website. ...
*
Chinese Historical Society of America The Chinese Historical Society of America (; abbreviated CHSA) is the oldest and largest archive and history center documenting the Chinese American experience in the United States. It is based in the Chinatown neighborhood of San Francisco, Cali ...
(also based in San Francisco) *
Museum of Chinese in America The Museum of Chinese in America (; abbreviated MOCA) is a museum in New York City which exhibits Chinese American history The history of Chinese Americans or the history of ethnic Chinese in the United States includes three major waves of C ...
(based in New York City) *
Artivism Artivism is a portmanteau word combining ''art'' and ''activism'', and is sometimes also referred to as ''Social Artivism''. The term artivism in US English takes roots, or branches, off of a 1997 gathering between Chicano artists from East Los An ...
*
History of the Chinese Americans in San Francisco As of 2012, 21.4% of the population in San Francisco was of Chinese descent, and there were at least 150,000 Chinese American residents. The Chinese are the largest Asian American subgroup in San Francisco.Fagan, Kevin.Asian population swells in B ...


References


External links


CCC's official website41 Ross's website
{{authority control Culture of San Francisco Museums in San Francisco Asian-American art Chinese-American museums in California Arts organizations based in the San Francisco Bay Area Non-profit organizations based in San Francisco Art museums and galleries in San Francisco Art museums and galleries in California Chinatown, San Francisco Asian art museums in California Arts organizations established in 1965 1965 establishments in California