Finding Chinatown

Sara Jane Boyers' decade long project photographing in the Chinatowns of the US & Canada is having its first solo exhibition.

Over the past decade Sara Jane Boyers has photographed 50 Chinatowns in the United States and Canada. The series began in San Francisco in 2001, home to the oldest Chinatown in America and the largest Chinese community outside of Asia. This initial examination awakened Boyers’ childhood memories of visiting the Los Angeles Chinatown near her father’s downtown office, and inspired her to begin a tour of Chinatowns across North America.

In Finding Chinatown, Boyer’s first solo exhibition at Craig Krull Gallery, her work explores the breadth of the Chinatowns that now range from historic to new strip malls serving the growing Asian population. Throughout, Boyers focuses on the detail of the everyday as she examines these portals into the American dream.    

Her sensitive photographs convey the brightness of calligraphic signs, the steam of busy kitchens, and the silence of back alleys. Boyers remarks, “I am fascinated by the light, vibrance and history of the Chinatowns. The vitality of each living, changing community and the general welcoming nature of those who pass through inspire me always. What intrigues me most are the still moments, even in the oft-frenetic mist.”