Gentrification focus of new public art in Boston’s Chinatown
A couple waits outside a restaurant in Boston’s Chinatown neighborhood. Artist Wen-ti Tsen, who plans to install life-sized portraits on the street around the neighborhood beginning Sept. 10, says they’re meant to underscore how the city’s building boom is displacing longtime residents and businesses in the historic downtown enclave.
BOSTON >> A public art project in Boston’s Chinatown is spotlighting the impact of development on the lively, historic downtown neighborhood.
Life-sized portraits of residents through the neighborhood’s long history are going up in plazas and on street corners for about a week starting Sept. 10.
Artist Wen-ti Tsen will also set up photo stations to take portraits of current residents, workers and passers-by that will be turned into life-size cutouts, too.
Tsen says the project is meant to underscore how the neighborhood remains a place where generations of people have lived and worked.
Susan Chinsen, of the Chinese Historical Society of New England, suggests the exhibit provides a “neutral” view of the often contentious gentrification debate.
