Fireside Chat with Chris Lau and Richmond Lam

Join photographers Chris Lau and Richmond Lam for an intimate discussion about their creative process for the current exhibition at Chinatown House, Made in Chinatown II: Portraits of Montréal Chinatown businesses. This will be your chance to hear all about their inspirations and stories for this project, from reaching out to the iconic businesses that are portrayed all the way to setting up inside Chinatown House. The follow-up to the highly successful Made in Chinatown I portraits which were postered right on Clark Street, this second phase of the Made in Chinatown project dives deeper into Chinatown legacy businesses as spaces of intergenerational cultural transmission and exchange.

Our Fireside Chat series provides the space to meet the people who help craft our exhibitions, giving centre stage to the stories that bind us together.

Chris Lau is a professional photographer, videographer and visual artist specializing in documentary photojournalistic portraiture that reveals people’s realities and authenticity through an anti-oppressive lens. He believes photography has the power to change people’s attitudes and lives. In 2023, Chris produced a documentary portrait series, titled ‘Out of the Shadows’, which creatively used light and shadow to recognize people living on the margins of society (https://chrislauphoto.ca/out-of-the-shadows).

Richmond Lam is a portrait and documentary photographer based in Montréal, originally from Hong Kong, with formative years spent in London. His practice is grounded in a quiet, empathetic gaze—attuned to subtle gestures and unspoken atmospheres. Working fluidly between personal and commissioned projects, Richmond creates intimate, psychologically rich portraits that explore presence, identity, and place.