Open House New York Weekend: Guided Tours of MOCA & Collections and Research Center
October 22, 2023, 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Since its founding in 1980, Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) has celebrated the living history of the Chinese experience in America by preserving and presenting the 200-year history, heritage, culture, and diverse experiences of American communities of Chinese descent.
Date: Sunday, October 22nd, 2023, 3:00 – 4:00 PM ET
Location: Museum of Chinese in America, 215 Centre Street, New York, NY 10013
Take an in-person guided tour of MOCA, featuring its permanent exhibition, “With a Single Step: Stories in the Making of America,” which interweaves the historical and political context of Chinese immigration to the United States with the personal stories and cultural traces of multiple generations. Get a last look at the special exhibition “Responses: Asian American Voices Resisting the Tides of Racism”, which closes on October 29th and explores the lessons of history and raises a collective voice against the rising tide of anti-Asian hate and violence. The tour will conclude with a Q&A session with Herb Tam, Curator and Director of Exhibitions.
Date: Sunday, October 22nd, 2023, 3:00 – 4:00 PM ET
Location: MOCA Research & Collections Center, 3 Howard, New York, NY 10013
The Research & Collections Center is a publicly accessible research and oral history workspace. Take a behind-the-scenes tour of MOCA’s Collections & Research Center and partake in a Q&A with Yue Ma, Director of the Collections and Research Center.
MOCA Workshop is the home base for MOCA’s fire recovery and conservation work, featuring state-of-the-art collections storage, a reference library, and digitization stations. On January 23, 2020, MOCA experienced a devastating five-alarm fire at its collections and archives site in the heart of Chinatown. In the days that followed, MOCA received an unprecedented outpouring of support from volunteers, community members, and professional institutions from near and far that was critical to the successful rescue of MOCA’s archives from the fire-damaged building. MOCA’s volunteers’ crucial collective efforts helped it save 90 percent of this invaluable 85,000-object collection of Chinese American history and heritage. Since October 2020, MOCA’s archives have been safely relocated to the MOCA Workshop for ongoing and multi-pronged fire recovery and conservation efforts.
Launched in 2003, Open House New York Weekend is an annual festival that opens hundreds of noteworthy or significant places across the five boroughs to foster discovery and delight for New Yorkers and visitors alike. On October 20-22, 2023, the 21st annual OHNY Weekend festival will offer a mix of in-person experiences, self-guided explorations, and digital content—inviting you to get an insider’s look at everything from single rooms, studios, factories, and public spaces to entire buildings, blocks, bike corridors, and waterways. Building on our expanded mission to promote citywide access to all New Yorkers, the festival is now 100% free to the public.
Building Capital Series: How does the combination of financial, cultural, and community capital enrich quality of life? The “Building Capital: Value of Place” series showcases places that play a vital role fostering community connections and local culture, telling the story of how the space was designed, built, and financed, how it’s being used, and how they contribute to the financial security and well-being of residents long displaced by systemic racism. Building Capital is the latest installment of OHNY’s Urban Systems program and is presented in partnership with Bloomberg Connects.