The San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC) has unveiled Chinatown: Love, Struggle, and Resistance, the third installment of four newly commissioned artwork poster sets for the 2022 Art on Market Street Kiosk Poster Series program.

Artist team Kayan Cheung-Miaw and Vida Kuang created six poster designs that presents hand-drawn vignettes highlighting the often-untold stories and struggles of Chinatown’s denizens, showcasing stories of love, struggle, and resistance. Each poster can viewed as a stand-alone comic, or together as a complete story.

“The Chinatown we know may not exist soon. Even before the pandemic, Chinatown had many empty storefronts while hungry developers waited close by.” said artists Kayan Cheung-Miaw and Vida Kuang, in a written project narrative, “Tenants were vulnerable to displacement due to lack of protection and economic instability. The pandemic also escalated the dehumanization of AAPI communities through racist scapegoating.”

The visual narratives foreground themes of love, caring across generations, survival, resistance to displacement and collectively demonstrate how Chinatown residents have contributed to the rich cultural and social legacy of San Francisco.

The artists worked with the Office of Civic Engagement & Immigrant Affairs to translate the text of four of the six posters into each of San Francisco’s threshold languages, including Chinese, Spanish, and Filipino, to help ensure these works would be accessible to a broader audience.

Chinatown: Love, Struggle, and Resistance will be on view from August through October 2022.