In Plain Sight: Conversation and Catalogue Launch, Henry Tsang 

In Plain Sight: Conversation and Catalogue Launch

Henry Tsang 

Friday, August 23, 2024

7 – 9 PM PT Door open at 6:30 PM

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Surrey Art Gallery, Centre A, and Powell Street Festival are pleased to celebrate the catalogue launch of Henry Tsang: In Plain Sight with a conversation between Henry Tsang, Judy Hanazawa, and Dan Tokawa at Centre A on Wednesday, August 24 from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Admission is free.

The conversation will focus on history, memory, built environment, and landscape through artist Henry Tsang’s photographic work. Judy Hanazawa and Dan Tokawa will discuss the recent initiatives of their organization Hastings Park Commemoration and Education Project. Henry Tsang: In Plain Sight is an exhibition catalogue that brings together two of Henry Tsang’s solo exhibitions, Hastings Park (2021) and Tansy Point (2022), both shown at Surrey Art Gallery. Hastings Park consisted of a series of colour photographs depicting the four remaining buildings in Vancouver where over 8000 Japanese Canadians were temporarily located and processed prior to being sent off to labour and internment camps during World War II. Tansy Point was a video installation of a photographic panorama centred on the peninsula of the same name, located near the mouth of the Columbia River. This is where the Anson Dart Treaties were signed in 1851 between the Indigenous Chinook peoples and the US government. The catalogue contains essays by Bryce Kanbara, Tarah Hogue, and Jordan Strom. It is designed by Vancouver-based designer Alex Hass.

The catalogue launches with Hastings Park, an exhibition organized as part of the 48th annual Powell Street Festival and in partnership with Centre A. The exhibit is on view until August 17.

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Speaker Bios: 

Henry Tsang

Henry Tsang is an artist and occasional curator based on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. His projects explore the spatial politics of history, language, community, food,
and cultural translation in relationship to place. These take the form of gallery exhibitions, pop-up street food offerings, 360 video walking tours, curated dinners, ephemeral and permanent public art, employing video, photography, language, interactive media, food, and convivial events. Projects include 360 Riot Walk, a 360-degree video walking tour of
the 1907 Anti-Asian Riots in Vancouver, Canada, and Welcome to the Land of Light, a public artwork along Vancouver’s seawall that underscores the 19th century trade Henry Tsang: In Plain Sight catalogue launch and conversation language Chinook Jargon and the English that replaced it. Tsang teaches at Emily Carr University of Art & Design.

Website: henrytsang.ca

Judy Hanazawa

Judy Hanazawa was born in 1947 in Merritt, BC where her family moved after their incarceration to the Bridge River self-supporting site. Her family were fishing people from Steveston but after the internment years, she grew up in Strathcona in the Downtown Eastside. Upon receiving her redress payment, she earned a Master of Social Work (MSW) from the University of British Columbia. Following her MSW practicum in the Squamish Nation, Hanazawa embarked on a lifelong relationship with the Squamish People,
becoming a program developer, service provider, trainer, and policy writer for Squamish Nation Ayas Men Men Child and Family Services. Over the last 30 years, she assumed executive positions in the Greater Vancouver Japanese Canadian Citizens’ Association (GVJCCA) and in the National Association of Japanese Canadians as chair of their Human Rights Committee. Her community development activity included being part of a group which in 2010, initiated development of the Japanese Canadian Hastings Park Interpretive Centre Society. Hanazawa is the Director of Hastings Park Commemoration and Education Project.

Daniel T. Tokawa

Daniel T. Tokawa was born in Ontario in 1948. Because of the unlawful expulsion of Canadians of Japanese ancestry from British Columbia, Tokawa returned to East Vancouver in 1952 with his family. Tokawa is the author of Vancouver Rashomon: Redress Stories. He has been the President of Hastings Park Commemoration and Education Project since 2021.