Relational Reconstructions of Erased Historic Neighborhoods of Color
About the Work
As an Asian-American resident of Providence, Rhode Island, Jeffrey Yoo Warren 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 2023 Innovator in Residence, Yoo Warren will work with Library of Congress staff and collections to digitally reconstruct Providence's historic Chinatown using 3D and virtual reality technologies. He will repeat the process for another historic Chinatown site in the United States, location yet to be determined. He will also publish a toolkit with research strategies and 3D modeling methods to empower other communities to do the same.
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 .
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