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  • Tagalog

Honoring the past with high-tech art at Lone Fir Cemetery

A wide view of Block 14 with the Serenading the Departed projection screen, tables and audience in the background.
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Honoring the past with high-tech art at Lone Fir Cemetery

By Myla Janssen, reporting from Lone Fir Cemetery
Nov. 27, 2024 9:30 a.m.

Bylined articles are written by Metro staff and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Metro or the Metro Council. Learn more

For decades, the southwest corner of Lone Fir Cemetery – labeled “Block 14” on cemetery maps – has been a bare field, with only some temporary signage to show that it was once the Chinese section of the cemetery. But on the evening of Oct. 11, the field glowed with unexpected additions: a rippling translucent projection screen surrounded by nine tables on each side adorned with red tablecloths and candles. The screen -- created by one of the collaborating artists, Limei Lai -- had multiple layers. One was stitched together with torn pieces to represent separation from loved ones and one’s home country. Another was hand-sewn with wave patterns to represent the journey across the ocean, and the other layers were embroidered with the names of those buried in the block. 

As the sun lowered, community members gathered on a path along the edge of the block to hear plaintive strains of traditional Chinese music played by musicians whose images fluttered, ghost-like, on the screen.  

A wide view of Block 14 with the Serenading the Departed projection screen, tables and audience in the background.

“Art can evoke things that history alone can’t...There [are] so many layers of history and art and music and sound to be found on this empty land without disturbing anything, really. That for us is still a miraculous way and wonderful way to use [augmented reality].”

This was the first night of “Serenading the Dead,” a two-night event presented by multidisciplinary artist Horatio Hung-Yan Law and arts organization MediaRites and funded by a Metro Community Placemaking grant. The event streamed both pre-recorded and live performances of music, opera and storytelling onto the screen to connect the past with the present. 

Law created and developed the original concepts behind “Serenading the Departed.” He described the event as a bridge between youth, elders and ancestors – as well as a collaboration between artists, musicians, youth storytellers and technology experts.

“Using art, music and technology, we hope to create a virtual bridge to connect Chinese and Asian Americans, as well as the larger public, to the history behind Block 14, Lone Fir Cemetery and to Chinatown-Old Town,” Law said. “The performances simulate the pastimes that the Chinese community would have enjoyed at a teahouse: tea drinking, musical performance and storytelling.” 

The events took place on Chung Yeung, also known as the Double Ninth Festival, a traditional Chinese holiday that takes place on the ninth day of the ninth month in the Chinese calendar. Hiking and drinking chrysanthemum wine are both common activities for this holiday. It is common for Chinese people to visit their families’ ancestral graves on the Double Ninth Festival to clean them, repaint inscriptions and offer food to the departed.

In the foreground, there is a sign in Chinese that explains the history of Block 14. In the background, there is a projection screen, tables with red tablecloths, and event attendees gathered on the pathway.

Instead of food, music and storytelling were served as virtual offerings. Streaming technology and projection of the performances on a screen allowed Law to use the space without having people physically stepping on land that could still potentially hold graves. Law hopes to be able to use augmented reality to allow people to experience the performances at the site afterward.  

A separate project by the artist collective the Creative and Emergent Technology Institute, of which Law is a member, took place during the daytime. “XRchive: (Hi)stories and Visions of Block 14 at Lone Fir Cemetery” used AR art to honor the site’s history without requiring anyone to walk on sacred ground. 

“Art can evoke things that history alone can’t,” Law said. “There [are] so many layers of history and art and music and sound to be found on this empty land without disturbing anything, really. That for us is still a miraculous way and wonderful way to use AR.” 

Law and MediaRites received a $21,000 Community Placemaking grant from Metro for the Serenading the Departed project. 

For Serenading the Departed, Law worked in collaboration with MediaRites, Chinese American youth storytellers from the Oregon Chinese Coalition and Yat Sing Music Club, a group of Cantonese opera singers and musicians founded during World War II that rehearses twice a week in Portland’s Old Town Chinatown.  

The first night of Serenading the Departed exhibited prerecorded videos, while the following night featured a live performance of Cantonese opera streaming from the teahouse in the Portland Chinatown Museum.

“How do I offer the departed a sense of normalcy?” Law questioned. “If you live in China, people will often go to a tea house for relaxation after work, to connect with other friends, community, family. They will drink tea, share snacks and watch performances. Sometimes, they're storytelling performances, and other times it will be a musical instrument, an opera singer.” 

People watch a projected video of a member of the Yat Sing Music Club playing the erhu.

Serenading the Departed may have been the last instance of an event at Block 14 for some time, as Metro prepares the site for construction of a new memorial. The memorial, scheduled to open by the end of 2026, will include storytelling about the site’s past.

Between 1867 and 1927, more than 2,800 people of Chinese ancestry were buried at Lone Fir Cemetery, the majority in Block 14. The Oregon Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association funded, organized, recorded and maintained burials there. It also oversaw the cultural practice of “repatriation”: disinterring and cleaning the buried remains so that the bones could be returned to the deceased person’s family burial plot in China.  

In 1928, Multnomah County took ownership of Lone Fir Cemetery and began working toward removing the Chinese section of the cemetery. In 1947, the county asked the CCBA to remove all remaining bodies from Block 14 to make way for a county maintenance building and parking lot. By 1953, the entire site had been built and paved over, with nothing to show the land’s earlier purpose. 

Multnomah County transferred Lone Fir Cemetery to Metro in 1994 but retained Block 14. In 2004, the county announced their plans to auction off Block 14 to developers. After outcry from community members and advocates, the county transferred Block 14 to Metro, and in 2007, it was rejoined with the cemetery. 

Dmae Lo Roberts, an award-winning writer, media and theatre artist and MediaRites’ executive producer, directed videos of Chinese American youth storytellers and hired and coordinated the project’s film team. The youth described their family’s immigration stories and what it has been like to grow up in the greater Portland area. They were also asked about what they know about early Chinese settlers and the story of Block 14. 

"They were more emotional about it, too,” Lo Roberts said. “Because if you think about young people and how they describe how the early days were, when you start learning about that kind of history, especially when it's been literally buried history, you can't help but feel some emotions about that and the unfairness and injustice of it. And I think young people now are even more in tune to that and being able to mobilize about that." 

Jenell Theobald, age 18, was one of seven youth storytellers involved in the project. Roberts, who has worked with Theobald before on another project, knew Theobald would provide valuable insight to the project. 

Theobald’s involvement with Block 14 started in 2019. Voters approved a $475 million parks and nature bond centering racial equity and outcomes that benefit people of color and other historically marginalized groups.  

When the Lone Fir Cemetery Foundation reached out to get Block 14 on the table for funding, Theobald read about the history of the site and the people who were buried there. She wrote a sample letter to Metro and sent it to other community organizations to garner support around the Block 14 project, prompting over 20 other students to do the same. 

In 2021, with $4 million in bond funding secured, work on the memorial began. 

“In a lot of cultures, being remembered is seen as a way of living on after death, and being erased from history is a way of killing them again,” Theobald said in her Serenading the Departed video. “It's pretty cruel what history has done to them. I think that this can be just a small way of restoring justice to these people." 

The history of Block 14 is a single stitch in the long history of displacement of and discrimination against Chinese people in the greater Portland area and in the United States in general. Old Town Chinatown once housed a vibrant Chinese American community with opera theaters, grocers, herbal shops and residencies. Discrimination, violence, urban renewal and the development of the Pearl District in the 1990s contributed to waves of displacement throughout the 20th century. 

Emma Wang, a 16-year-old second-generation immigrant from China whose parents were raised in Beijing and Tianjin, reflected on anti-Asian racism in Oregon’s history and the lives of the people buried in Block 14. 

“They must have faced a lot of challenges coming in with different discrimination and stereotypes, but it didn't set them back, and they kept on working on what they came here to do,” Wang said. “And I think that carries down to the Asian American community today. They're strong and resilient against the things they're still facing today." 

The future memorial at the site will include a place for offerings. Perhaps one day in the future, people will offer food and drink for the departed. For now, thanks to Law and all those involved in Serenading the Departed, community members remember and honor the lives of the departed and the history of the site through offerings of music and storytelling.

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