In 2024, architect and professor Linda Zhang visited the Archives with a team of University of Waterloo architecture students to research seven key Chinatown landmarks. Using the records consulted during that visit as a starting point, Professor Zhang’s students transformed archival blueprints, reports, maps, and photographs into the evocative three-dimensional building models on display, drawing extensively on community storytelling to bridge gaps in the archival record and build a shared narrative about these important places and spaces. The records and the personal stories and memories that helped shape these models are a vivid example of how communities can connect with archival records, creating dialogues between past, present, and future. "Let’s Build a Collective Memory of Chinatown!" is a new exhibit opening at the Archives on August 28 and running until February 26, 2027. 1. Old Chinatown survey, 1991, Fonds 2043, Series 2523, File 1716, Item 4. 2. Model of interior of...