Artists Deanne Achong and Faith Moosang have produced an interactive website that peeks into the history of Cantonese opera and theatres in Vancouver’s Chinatown at the turn of the 20th century. Various stories from the time (1890s – 1920s) are presented using altered archival imagery, film and audio, newspapers and historical documents, creating a visceral sense of the theatrical community in the context of the time and place. Three major opera houses and several “Underwater Theatres” house the immersive narrative.

The project was commissioned by Cinevolution Media Arts Society and can be viewed at underwaterchinatown.com

Role/Tasks

Website Design
Website Development – Custom Theme
Graphic Design
Archival Research
Project Management
Collaborative Process

p.s. It’s odd to write about oneself in the third person. There were many aspects of this project that were quite engaging to work on, both from a coding point of view and an artist pov. As an artist, one of the sections that I was very engaged with was The Actors – exploring the gruelling conditions that actors/actresses faced in the early 1900s when coming to Vancouver to perform at the Opera House. From a coding perspective, getting the fading and scrolling as well as the multiple background images working, and figuring out how and where to pull up the range of content was quite challenging and rewarding.” — Deanne Achong