Chinatown Storytelling Centre Opens the Learning Lab on its Fifth Anniversary
The New Immersive Space Welcomes Visitors to time Travel Through Chinatown
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To marks its fifth anniversary with the opening of the Learning Lab, a vibrant new 4,000-square-foot space that brings the history of Vancouver's Chinatown to life through historic facades, immersive environments, and cutting-edge digital displays. The space features a presentation theatre, a media studio, and workshop space that support hands-on learning. It will serve as a dynamic hub for educational programs, tours, and community gatherings. When the Chinatown Storytelling Centre opened its main floor five years ago, it told the story of how Chinese migrants came to British Columbia: the journeys, the sacrifices, and challenges they endured. The Learning Lab carries those stories forward. By recreating Chinatown storefronts, artifacts, photos, and interactive digital experiences, the Learning Lab reveals a community that established businesses, created institutions, and forged a vibrant urban neighbourhood against significant odds. This was a community that built a neighbourhood on its own terms. An Immersive Experience The Learning Lab offers an engaging, sensory experience that makes Chinatown's history feel immediate and personal. Visitors step into a vivid Chinatown streetscape that brings to life the neighbourhood's heyday in the 1950s to the 1980s - its restaurants and nightclubs, herbal shops and general stores, newspapers and community organizations. Visitors can discover a cutting-edge digital wall filled with stories where they can interact with a full-wall screen to explore individual objects and their significance in Chinese Canadian history. Everyday objects are given new meaning, becoming unexpected storytellers that bring Chinatown’s past into vivid focus. Additionally, Stories Within, a reimagined herbal apothecary cabinet, shares personal stories of migration and settlement. Visitors can open drawers to discover objects revealing how immigrants built new lives by founding transpacific businesses, driving taxis, and opening restaurants. The cabinet also traces how the next generation forged identities that carry both their parents’ heritage and a sense of belonging in Canada. |
PROJECT DETAILSClient: Chinatown Storytelling Centre
Date: May 21 & 24, 2026 Services: Media Relations (Chinese), Influencers Management Location: Chinatown Storytelling Centre MEDIA & INFLUENCER IMPACT8 Media Coverage
Including OMNI News, Sing Tao 13 Influencer Collaborations with a total following of 202.1K across Instagram, YouTube and Red Note |
