The Chung | Lind Gallery is celebrating the one-year anniversary since it opened its doors to the public on May 1, 2024. In the past year, UBC Library has celebrated many exciting milestones.
Partnering with UBC Studios, the Chung | Lind Gallery has launched a self-guided virtual tour, available now online. This immersive virtual tour places you in the Gallery, from the comfort of your own home—or anywhere else in the world. Explore the Gallery’s exhibits close-up and get a 360-degree view of the Gallery space.
Kicking off a remarkable year
After years of planning, construction, curatorial and design work, UBC Library announced in April 2024 that a new exhibition space was opening. The Chung | Lind Gallery, located in the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre on UBC Vancouver campus, would showcase two culturally significant library collections: the Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection and Phil Lind Klondike Gold Rush Collection.
Following a special ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by members of both the Chung and Lind families and UBC president and vice-chancellor Dr. Benoit-Antoine Bacon, the Gallery opened its doors to the public on May 1, 2024.
Left: Members of the Chung and Lind families mark the official opening of the Chung | Lind Gallery April 19, 2024. Photo credit: Arlen Redekop. Right: Dr. Wallace Chung and family visiting the Chung | Lind Gallery before its public opening. Photo credit: Phoebe Chan, UBC Library Communications and Marketing.
Welcoming visitors to a new learning space
The Chung | Lind Gallery welcomed its first student class visit later that month, on May 23, 2024. The students visited the exhibit space with their instructor, Dr. Henry Yu, Associate Professor in the UBC Department of History, along with Musqueam Elder Gina Grant and University Librarian Dr. Susan E. Parker.
“The Chung | Lind Gallery has not only proven to be an exceptional space for research, teaching and learning at UBC, but also a welcoming space for community engagement and cultural enrichment. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the Gallery this year,“ says Dr. Susan E. Parker, University Librarian.
UBC’s first class visit to the Chung | Lind Gallery on May 23, 2024. Photo credit: Phoebe Chan, UBC Library Communications and Marketing.
Collaborations and community engagement
The start of the 2024/2025 academic year at UBC kicked off with a collaboration between the Chinese Canadian Museum, the Chung | Lind Gallery, and UBC Library’s Rare Books and Special Collections. On September 4, the Chinese Canadian Museum launched a new exhibition inside the Poy Family Gallery titled Reshaping Collections: Where History Meets Art featuring unique art creations that reinterpret materials from the Chung Collection, which also celebrated its 25th anniversary.
The Gallery began offering weekly drop-in tours in October, inviting visitors to stop by Saturday mornings at 11:15 a.m. for a free hour-long introductory tour of the Gallery’s collections. In November 2024, the Chung | Lind Gallery hosted a community archiving workshop with the hua foundation, a youth empowerment non-profit, based in Vancouver’s Chinatown, that works on racial equity and civic engagement issues.
Community Archiving 101 at the Chung | Lind Gallery with the hua foundation on November 7, 2024. Photo credit: Nathalie De Los Santos.
The Gallery partnered with UBC Music, Art and Architecture (MAA) Library to present a hands-on workshop on January 24, 2025, that explored visual literacy. Using contemporary and historical images, visual media, and material culture, participants compared the visual narratives of historical materials in the Gallery with art monographs and exhibition catalogues from the MAA Library and RBSC Library.
In February 2025, the Chinese Canadian Museum and the Chung | Lind Gallery joined together once again to invite kids and families into the Gallery for Kids Take Over UBC. Participants had fun engaging with a scavenger hunt, activity books, kids-focused tours, and a zine-making workshop with artist Stella Zheng.
Kids Take Over UBC at the Chung | Lind Gallery on February 16, 2025. Photo credit: Rachel Topham Photography.
Digitizing the Lind collection
Finally, in March 2025, UBC Library digitized the Phil Lind Klondike Gold Rush Collection, publishing a digitized version of the collection online through Open Collections. Each of the collection’s approximately 1,400 items—which include books, photographs, postcards and printed textual records—were captured through the digitization process, making these materials accessible worldwide.