Samson Young - It's A Heaven Over There

This publication was made in course of It’s a heaven over there, Samson Young's first solo exhibition in Canada. Situated in a cavernous gallery in a pink-walled, neon-lit, 1980s era shopping mall in Vancouver’s ever gentrifying Chinatown, this multimedia installation originates from Young’s archival research on Won Alexander Cumyow, the first person of Chinese descent born in Canada, and mobilizes Centre A’s location in a former retail mall to stage a double vision of global retrotopianism.

In this exhibition, the contemporary retrotopian impulse that remembers once-vibrant mall fountain courts as town squares becomes an entryway into the poetics of the diasporic imagination. It’s a heaven over there continues Young’s interest in shifting topologies, the modern nation-state, and cosmopolitan social imaginaries, and will feature a new body of works on paper, an animated music video, and archival materials.

Editor: Godfre Leung
Published 2019, Vancouver: Centre A.
With texts by Hendrik Folkerts, Godfre Leung, Qinyi Lim, Tyler Russell.