Credit: Mel Taing
Gardens are where we meet. In gardens, we meet our friends and neighbors; we meet the natural world; we meet our roots in order to plan and envision new growth for the future. Through the artwork of Boston-based artists Mel Taing and Yu-Wen Wu, and New York City-based artist Ming Fay, imagine what gardens can be and the roles they play in our lives.
This exhibition is inspired by the many gardeners, residents, community organizers, and activists who have worked for years to create and cultivate gardens and greenspaces across Boston’s Chinatown neighborhood. Let the artists be your guides to imagine what is possible in the garden.
Curated by Dr. Gabrielle Niu, PhD
Join us for the opening reception on Friday, July 18 | 6:00 - 8:00 PM.
Check out the companion zine: Between the Bricks: A Field Guide to Imagined Gardens.
View Ming Fay: Edge of the Garden a partner exhibition from Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum to continue to explore "What is a garden?" from June 26 – September 21, 2025.
Gallery hours
Wednesday, Friday, Saturday | 1:00 - 5:00 PM and Thursday | 1:00 - 6:00 PM
Preview of Works on Display
Credit: Ming Fay, Peach, 1990s, Mixed Media, 11.25 x 9 x 10 in, Private Collection
Credit: Yu-Wen Wu
About the Artists
Mel Taing
Mel Taing is a photographer, community artist and educator. Specializing in creative portraiture, exhibition documentation and community engagement, Mel seeks to celebrate the vibrance, radiance and joy of the intersecting communities in her life. As a second generation Cambodian American, Mel roots much of her work within the Asian American diaspora. She is especially interested in themes of belonging and discovering the ways the past echoes into our present. Since 2023, Mel has been a lead engagement artist for the Chinatown Cultural Plan alongside fellow team members Lily Xie and Heang Rubin. Mel utilized her portraiture practice and creative facilitation with Chinatown community members to surface the neighborhood’s qualities, assets, and histories in order to develop policies and strategies that preserve and protect Chinatown.
Artist image: Self-portrait by Mel Taing
Yu-Wen Wu
Yu-Wen Wu is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in Boston. Born in Taipei, Taiwan, Wu’s subjectivity as an immigrant is central to her artwork. At the crossroads of art, science, politics and social issues, her wide range of projects include large-scale drawings, site-specific video installations, and community engaged practices. Wu is an artist-in-residence at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston. She was a 2021 recipient of the Mass Cultural Council Artist Fellowship in Installation, a 2023 recipient of the James and Audrey Foster Prize at the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, and a 2024 cohort of the Trellis Art Fund.
Artist image: Edward Boches
Ming Fay 費明杰
(1943-2025)
Ming Fay was a New York City-based artist known for his installations of immersive sculptural gardens and public art. Working primarily in papier-mâché over a wire armature, Fay drew from his life-long engagement with Chinese and American horticulture and mythologies to create sculptures of large-scale botanical forms and invented imaginary species. He focused on the concept of the garden as a symbol of abundance or a utopia – a metaphorical location for humankind's desirable state of being.
Born in Shanghai to two artists and raised in Hong Kong, Fay moved to the United States in 1961 to attend the Columbus College of Art and Design. He received a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and an MFA at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Fay taught sculpture at universities, including William Paterson University and the Maryland Institute College of Art. His work is held in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, New Museum, M+, and the Hong Kong Museum of Art, among others.
Artist image: The Estate of Ming Fay
About the Curator
Photo credit: Amanda Guerra
Gabrielle Niu works as the Assistant Curator of the Collection and Exhibitions at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts. In the summer of 2025, she curated Where We Meet: Imagining Gardens and Futures as well as its partner show, Ming Fay: Edge of the Garden (June 26, 2025 - September 21, 2025) at the Gardner Museum. Previously, Gabrielle worked in the East Asian Art Department at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and she has taught Asian art history at Indiana University, Yale University, and Boston University. She completed her Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania.
Contact for inquiries: Maia Erslev.
Supported by
Where We Meet: Imagining Gardens and Futures and its public programming are supported by the New England Foundation for the Arts' Public Art for Spatial Justice program, with funding from the Barr Foundation and the Fund for the Arts at NEFA.