Dream Factory: Cantopop Mandopop 1980s–2000 the Chinese Canadian Museum’s feature exhibition has been extended by two months to allow more visitors to experience the acclaimed installation, now due to close July 19, 2026.
In addition to its public popularity, the exhibition has recently been recognized with the 2025 Canadian Museums Association Award for Outstanding Achievement: Exhibitions, a national honour presented to institutions that have demonstrated excellence in museum exhibition initiatives.
“The Chinese Canadian Museum is deeply honoured to receive this award,” says Dr. Melissa Karmen Lee, CEO of the Chinese Canadian Museum and curator of Dream Factory. “Dream Factory brings to light a largely overlooked chapter of Canadian popular culture — one shaped by Cantopop and Mandopop and woven into the everyday lives of Chinese Canadian communities. These musical worlds are part of Canada’s cultural fabric, even if they have often existed outside the mainstream record. This recognition affirms the importance of uncovering, preserving, and reintroducing these cultural references before they disappear, allowing museums to tell fuller, more nuanced stories of Canada — where popular culture, memory, and migration intersect to create a richer national history.”
The Canadian Museums Association Awards program is intended to recognize excellence in Canadian museums, and the Award for Outstanding Achievement: Exhibitions recognizes excellence in exhibition planning, development, and delivery, celebrating projects that meaningfully and distinctively deepen public understanding.
“The Chinese Canadian Museum created a very innovative exhibition that was participatory and engaging. The narrative of the exhibition felt incredibly integrated with the community and wove together the present, past and future, telling living stories pulled from their deep relationships.” noted the CMA Awards Jury.
on show until July 19, 2026 at Chinese Canadian Museum
Since opening on May 28, 2025, patrons have flocked to the Chinese Canadian Museum and Dream Factory to be entertained by the lively exhibition. Bringing together newly commissioned fashion costumes, original music scores, immersive art installations, paintings, film, a karaoke room, and interactive listening stations Dream Factory not only entertains, it allows generations of Chinese Canadians to share their dreams. By preserving languages, emotions, migration stories, and tracing the flow of culture connecting Hong Kong, Taiwan, Mainland China, and Canada the exhibition does its part to catalogue Canada’s cultural archives.
“This award belongs to the Asian immigrant generation who arrived after 1967 and built new lives in Canada, far from their original homes,” adds Lee. “It honours the parents who listened to this music while raising children who grew up with the voices of Sally Yeh, Leslie Cheung, and Roman Tam. This recognition is for them.”
Closing July 19, 2026, Dream Factory: Cantopop Mandopop 1980s–2000 is on exhibit at the Chinese Canadian Museum, located in the historic Wing Sang Building in Vancouver Chinatown at 51 E Pender Street. For information about the Chinese Canadian Museum’s exhibitions and events, visit chinesecanadianmuseum.ca.