Relational Reconstructions of Erased Historic Neighborhoods of Color by 2023 Innovator in Residence Jeffrey Yoo Warren
About the Work
As an Asian American resident of Providence, Rhode Island, Jeffrey was shocked to discover the block he lived on was once the heart of a bustling Chinatown, and the degree to which this history was invisible today. As the Library’s Innovator in Residence, Yoo Warren is working with Library of Congress staff and collections to digitally reconstruct historic Chinatowns using 3D and virtual reality technologies. He also published a toolkit with research strategies and 3D modeling methods to empower other communities to do the same. The toolkit and related resources are available on the Library's Seeing Lost Enclaves GitHub repository External.
The Relational Reconstruction Toolkit External
The toolkit is a guide to Jeffrey's method, a set of practices for creating an immersive (virtual, 3D) reconstruction of an erased neighborhood. Though Chinatowns are a starting point for Jeff, due to his work in Providence's Chinatown, the methods in the toolkit are designed to support multifaceted remembrance and correction, through relationships between the experiences partially represented in the archive, and today’s parallel experiences in minoritized groups. The toolkit features a written guide and video tutorials covering topics such as research External, modeling External, soundscapes External, atmosphere External, and a source set of free to use archival items from the Library of Congress found during his research.
Bibliographies for toolkit videos/ featured items External and inspiration External are available in the toolkit.
Hidden Portals
Library of Congress 2023-2024 Innovator in Residence Jeffrey Yoo Warren invited the public to visit a series of virtual installations on the Library's Washington, DC campus and five historic Asian American sites around the country.
Publications and Talks
- "2023 Innovator in Residence Rebuilds and Revisits Lost Communities", press release, November 10, 2022
- "Introducing 'Seeing Lost Enclaves' with Innovator in Residence Jeffrey Yoo Warren", The Signal blog, Jan 18, 2023
- "Loss & Tenderness: A conversation with Maya Cade and Jeffrey Yoo Warren", video interview, March 15, 2023
- "Jeffrey Yoo Warren: Seeing Lost Enclaves", Timeless: Stories from the Library of Congress blog, April 27, 2023
- "Relational Reconstruction of the Portland Chinese Vegetable Gardens", The Signal blog, May 09, 2023
- "Seeing Lost Enclaves: Atmosphere and Emotional Space in Relational Reconstruction", The Signal blog, June 28, 2023
- "Innovator in Residence Invites Public to Experience Chinatown Reconstruction", press release, September 12,2023
- "Seeing Lost Enclaves: A Virtual Visit of Providence's Historic Chinatown", event recording, September 15, 2023
- "Relational Reconstruction Toolkit Now Available", The Signal blog, October 12,2023
- "Relational Reconstruction of Hanford, CA’s China Alley with artist Evelyn Hang Yin", The Signal blog, March 8, 2024
- "Library Hosts Hidden Portals Experience and Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Events in May", press release, May 1, 2024
- "Experience 'Hidden Portals' this May", The Signal blog, May 7, 2024
- "Hidden Portals Family Day Mask-making Workshop", The Signal blog, July 8, 2024
About Jeffrey
Jeffrey Yoo Warren is an artist, educator and co-founder of the Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science. While a student at MIT, he co-developed the Grassroots Mapping methodology, blending Public Participation GIS and community-based Participatory Mapping with do-it-yourself aerial photography using kites and balloons. His current artistic practice investigates how people build identity and strength through their interactions with artifacts and histories, and the ways that objects can tell stories that people can be part of in the present. You can follow Jeffrey on Instagram @unterbahn and on Twitter @jywarren .