This past Friday, January 11th we marked the official opening of the City Beneath the City Installation @ Stanford Archaeology Center with an exciting, well attended and memorable opening reception.
CBC @ SAC Opening Reception
With at least 80 people from the Stanford and surrounding community, news media from the Menlo Park News, National Public Radio, and the U.S. Bureau of the China News Service, the exhibit run is off to a great start!
Over the last two weeks we here at the Market Street Chinatown Archaeology Project have been working tirelessly to install the City Beneath the City exhibition in the Stanford Archaeology Center.
This exhibition of Market Street Chinatown artifacts is now getting a second life here at the Stanford Archaeology Center. To bring this artwork to Stanford University, Rene Yung redesigned City Beneath the City into an exhibition suitable for a public passageway. This new iteration of City Beneath the City transforms the everyday spaces of archaeological research into unexpected places for reflection.
City Beneath the City at the Stanford Archaeology Center
We wanted to share some of the installation excitement with you. Take a look below to find photos of the installation process.
Installing The City Beneath the City
A look at the exhibition space before we began the installation.
Artist Rene Yung, top right, works with preparator Lisa Newble, top left, and students to lay out the case drawers.
Our team of professionals assembles a drawer liner to protect the drawer interiors.
Lisa Newble and student Meredith Reifschneider fill one of the case drawers with decomposed granite.
Rene Yung and Lisa Newble place artifacts from the Market Street Chinatown collection in the case drawers.
Lisa Newble adjusts the height of the shelves in one of the cases.
Rene Yung places a porcelain rice bowl in the display.
Rene Yung speaks with student Kyle Lee-Crossett during the installation about her vision for the City Beneath the City exhibition.
Of course all of the vitrines over the cases must be cleaned so that no finger prints show. Lisa Newble cleans the interior of one of the pedestal cases before it is placed over the artifacts.
Rene Yung considers the placement of some of the artifacts in one of the cases.
Rene Yung and preparator Colin hang a floor-to-ceiling 1884 map of the Market Street Chinatown.
Rene Young works and student Cherkea Howery arrange artifacts in case drawers.
This past Sunday, Nov. 4th 2012 the Market Street Chinatown Archaeological Project hosted its second Public Archaeology Event of the Fall at History Park in San Jose! Stanford undergraduate and graduate student volunteers (most veterans of the Oct 13th Public Archaeology event) were joined by volunteers from Notre Dame High School in San Jose.
Playing out against the musical backdrop of a bluegrass band, the Stanford volunteers hosted well over 150 kids and their parents at 4 different stations (excavation, screening, artifact identification, and artifact reconstruction) meant to simulate the archaeological process that has been used to unearth, analyze and curate artifacts from the San Jose Market Street Chinatown collection. A final station was located within the Chinese American Museum at the Ng Shing Gung and provided the Public Archaeology Event participants an opportunity to gain a broader appreciation of Chinese American experiences in San Jose and the Santa Clara Valley from the mid-19th century to the present and the specific role that archaeology has played in reconstructing the history of the Market Street Chinatown and the experiences of its inhabitants.
Setting up the excavation activity.
While the excavation station is usually the most popular, we had SO many participants this time around that ALL stations were continually busy! Not only did our volunteers more than earn their keep, they all left quite fulfilled thanks to the sheer number of Junior Archaeologist Badges awarded to participants who completed all the stations!
As always, thanks very much to all the participants, volunteers and our hosts at History San Jose for an amazingly successful and fun day at History Park!
Please mark your calendars for our next Public Archaeology Event:
January 27th, 2013 at History San Jose’s Peralta Adobe (more details in the coming weeks!)
