In Chinatown’s first-ever Double Ninth Festival on Oct. 26, multidisciplinary artist Anita Yip convened seniors from several community organizations for a lively afternoon of performances.

The festival, called “The Thousand Bloom: A Chrysanthemum Grows in Chinatown,” lit up the Tufts Community Common on a windy Saturday afternoon. Organized by Pao Arts Center in partnership with the City of Boston’s Un-monument Initiative, the event imagined Chinatown itself as a monument, presenting 1,000 silk chrysanthemums in a public art installation representing the community’s resilience and rich cultural legacy.

The public art installation was a participatory project. Yip held chrysanthemum-making workshops before the event with local seniors.

According to U.S. census data from 2000, older adults make up 21% of Chinatown’s population, in contrast to Boston’s 10%. The festival sought to commemorate that legacy by presenting community members’ collective memory as a type of monument.

The result was a charming afternoon of intergenerational connections. For Yip, the highlight was a qi gong session in which children and elders moved smoothly in unison, almost effortlessly.