The JIA Foundation Origin Story
2022
JIA is Formed to Preserve and Promote Montréal Chinatown’s (In)tangible Cultural Heritage
JIA was born out of the Chinatown Working Group after successful community mobilization helped catalyze the process to obtain provincial heritage protection for the set of historic buildings forming the Wing’s Block, designated as the Noyau-du-Quartier-chinois.
2023
JIA Leads National Dialogue for Chinatowns
We organized the Chinatown Reimagined Forum a three-day event bringing together organizers from Chinatowns across Canada and the USA (Boston, Calgary, Edmonton, Los Angeles, Montréal, New York, Philadelphia, Toronto, Vancouver, and Washington D.C.) to discuss issues common to all our Chinatowns.
2024
JIA Expands Its Space Activation Work
JIA continues activating spaces in innovative ways, both within Chinatown (1st and 2nd floors of the Chinese Family Service Building at 1088 Clark Street, Sun-Yat-Sen Park), and outside of it, through a collaboration with UdeM (JIA’s first major exhibition and conference series to happen outside of Chinatown), laying the groundwork for future academic collaborations. 2024 also saw us strengthen our team’s strategic capacity and reinforce our work orientations.
2025
JIA Moves Into Heritage Building Inside Wing’s Block
We moved into our first permanent space at 116 De La Gauchetière Ouest, inside the building baptized ‘Maison Yep-Riopel’. The ground floor became the new Chinatown House space, which would hold a first exhibition about the history of the building itself.
Present Day
JIA continues working in education, in cultural programs and space activation, and in community infrastructure and research. See Our Work to discover our current projects.
