In Search of Rice

In Search of Rice is not your typical Chinatown visitor experience.

There are no stop-and-stare facts or dates to memorise. Instead, this is an artist-led participatory performance experience that invites you to feel Chinatown in a different way.

Guided by three artists you’ll move through London’s Chinatown together as a group - listening to stories, noticing colours and markings, breathing in scents, and responding to the space around you. It offers time to pause, tune into the city, and reflect on our own relationships with food, place, and community.

Along the way, you’ll hear voices and personal memories that reveal how Chinatown was built through migration, hard work, care, and community – often by people whose labour has gone unseen, especially women.

This walk shifts between past and present, asking simple but powerful questions:
What does it mean to belong somewhere?
Who makes a place feel alive?
What stories are hidden in the streets we walk every day?

In Search of Rice is a ritual sequence: gathering rice, washing it, cooking it together, and finally sharing a spoon of rice and performance. We invite you to connect with others and experience the city through your senses. It’s about walking differently, listening closely, and recognising that every step we take helps shape Chinatown’s future - just like individual grains of rice coming together to make something nourishing.

Experience information:

This performance incorporates a 40 minute walk and then a 50 minute conclusion in a restaurant. Seats will be available. The performance is in English.

The walking route covers a small geographical area and audience members will need to be able to stand or sit in their mobility aids for extended periods. There is limited public seating in Chinatown. The route is mostly flat with dropped kerbs. The restaurant part of the performance is up two flights of stairs.

There are no public toilets along the route. Bathrooms are available in the restaurant in the last 50 minutes of the performance.

Chinatown is a busy public area and is often noisy, crowded, and has bright lights and often strong smells.

A symbolic spoonful of rice will be shared with guests during the performance. This is optional. Cooking and serving the rice is the responsibility of the performers and not the host restaurant.

If you would like to find out more about how you could access this performance, please email hello@chinatowncollective.london

Artists’ biographies

Arati Kang Ting Ho is a UK-based artist, dramaturg, director, drag artist, and theatre facilitator from Taiwan. Her practice interrogates artistic labour, gender, and LGBTQ+ visibility, fusing political urgency with mischievous theatricality. Recent credits include directing Make Way for Rose (Camden Fringe, 2024) and serving as dramaturg on Is There Work on Mars? (Peckham Fringe, 2024).

Sean Ting-Hsuan Wang, Co-founder of Studio Current. Sean is a performer, theatre director and movement director from Taiwan. The heart of Sean’s work lies in music and movement. He works with Michael Chekhov technique, specifically with movement qualities and imaginary centres. Sean’s performance Street Chronicles: was performed in Unknown Book Festival in Incheon, London and Taipei. Sean also directed NO I.D. by Tatenda Shamiso, which has been transferred to The Royal Court Theatre.

Victoria Yuan-Yi Ying is an interpretive designer with six years of experience creating interdisciplinary projects for museums, heritage and cultural institutions. With a background in history and spatial design, she designs and develops visitor experiences that explore culture through exhibitions, games, and sensory media—inviting reflection on history and dialogue around contemporary issues.

Funder credit: This project was supported generously by the Westminster City Council through the St James’s Councillors’ Ward Budget.

We extend our sincere appreciation to Jinli for generously sponsoring the venue for the indoor element of the performance.