VISUAL ARTS

ARTS Artist peels back hidden history of Hastings Park

by Charlie Smith

Henry Tsang used an infrared camera, relying on pigment ink on metallic paper and an aluminum panel, to capture an image of the entrance to the PNE’s Livestock Building. Photo by Henry Tsang.

Most people don’t give much thought to the Pacific National Exhibition Livestock Building when they’re passing through Hastings Park. But for Vancouver artist Henry Tsang, the 100,000-square-foot structure retains a special fascination—and not only because he spent a great deal of time at the PNE as a child, gobbling minidonuts and watching baby-pig races.

It wasn’t until Tsang became an adult that he learned about the building’s sinister history as the site where Japanese Canadians were detained in 1942. This was before they were shipped to overcrowded internment camps in the B.C. Interior or to work on sugar-beet farms in Alberta and Manitoba. The following year, the government liquidated their assets.

“The Livestock Building is such an odd structure,” Tsang recently told the Straight by phone. “It’s like Janus—the Roman god’s name—it’s literally two-faced.

“From the south side, which is what most people are used to, it looks like these ramshackle, cobbled-together different buildings,” he continued. “It’s red on that side with all the wood. Then the other side is this neoclassical, somewhat imposing structure stretched out with tall stone columns with steps going up to it, which is the main entrance.”

Back in 1942, celebrated local photographer Leonard Frank was commissioned by the B.C. Security Commission to document the warehousing of Japanese Canadians at Hastings Park. This led Tsang to take a series of his own images a few years ago of four remaining PNE buildings from 1942 at Hastings Park. “Basically, my series are in conversation with his,” Tsang revealed. “I wasn’t trying to emulate his images.” In fact, they’re radically different in that Tsang used a construction-industry infrared camera, which could also take video. The image of the Livestock Building was displayed on the CBC Wall in 2018. Currently, 11 images and video are part of an installation called Hastings Park at the Surrey Art Gallery. “I thought, ‘What is it that I can’t see on the surface?’” Tsang said. The results aim to peel back the hidden history of what took place in the four buildings. According to Tsang, he shot a video as if there were four surveillance cameras at 90-degree angles from one another, capturing a quadrant. Then the images are projected onto a screen in the gallery, but people cannot see them with the naked eye. At the other end of the exhibition, however, there’s a large TV set. Because this monitor is connected to the cameras, people will see themselves as they approach it, creating a sense that they’re being watched. “It’s as if it was a camera sweeping the grounds and checking to see if people are breaking curfew or trying to escape,” Tsang explained.

Hastings Park is being shown until August 28 in partnership with the Powell Street Festival and the Nikkei National Museum and Cultural Centre along with artist Cindy Mochizuki’s Autumn Strawberry exhibition. It features hand-painted and digital animation depicting Japanese Canadian farm life prior to the Second World War.

Tsang, an associate professor at Emily Carr University of Art + Design, also created the 360 Riot Walk, which is part of the Powell Street Festival. It evolved out of a 2018 project called Riot Food Here, in which people could sit at tables and eat different types of cuisine along the route walked by members of the Asiatic Exclusion League when they attacked Chinese and Japanese Vancouver residents in 1907. There are upcoming guided tours in Japanese, Cantonese, Punjabi, and English, but it can also be experienced online through 360riotwalk.ca.

“I hope it opens up a way of questioning how we see the world around us and how we consider the place where we live,” Tsang said. “Through the lens of hindsight, we have the benefit of saying, ‘Those people, they did things that were wrong.’ Well, what are we doing now that’s wrong? How will we be judged in the future?” g

It’s like Janus—the Roman god’s name—it’s literally two-faced.

– artist Henry Tsang

On Saturday (July 17) at 7 p.m., artists Henry Tsang and Cindy Mochizuki will speak about their exhibitions on the Surrey Art Gallery’s Facebook and YouTube channels.

27th Annual Wreck Beach Butoh Performances Saturday, July 24th at 12:00pm Sunday, July 25th at 12:45pm

By donation Clothing optional beach Foot of the #4 Trail below the UBC Museum of Anthropology No photography/video allowed