Home: Here and Now

Home: Here and Now

Home: Here and Now explores and celebrates the many ways that Chinese descendants live and belong in Tasmania.

A new free exhibition Home: Here and Now that celebrates the unique stories of Chinese descendants is now open at the State Library and Archives of Tasmania, Launceston, in partnership with the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG).

Chinese people and their descendants have made Tasmania home for almost two centuries. During the tin mining boom of the 1880s, Tasmania’s Chinese population mostly lived in the rural northeast, sowing the seeds of belonging.

Whether as a miner, market gardener, restaurateur, homemaker, student or entrepreneur, ‘belonging’ in Tasmania has meant something different to each person.

Home: Here and Now features oral histories from recent migrants as well as fourth-generation Tasmanians of Chinese descent describing their process of belonging.

Personal artifacts and honoured objects tell a visual story of the life of Chinese descendants in Tasmania, including traditional cooking and gardening and other domestic implements from the Guan Di temple, originally located in Weldborough.

Home: Here and Now is curated by TMAG’s Cultural Heritage team with assistance from the Chinese Community Association of Tasmania and Tasmania’s Fujianese community. The exhibition is supported by the National Foundation for Australia-China Relations.