Japanese Canadian Hastings Park Interpretive Centre
Vancouver, BC
Ongoing
The JCHPIC will be a space telling the story of the role Hastings Park played in the detention of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War. The project began as a feasibility study to review the technical requirements of renovating the space, which is a heritage building, inclusive of structural, mechanical and electrical upgrades and a project capital cost estimate. The documentation created provided content to apply for funding from the Japanese Legacy Fund, and has evolved into MOTIV providing design services for the completion of the project.
The project is situated in Hastings Park within the Livestock Building, which housed 8000 Japanese Canadians between March 1942 to March 1943.
Construction of the exterior phase of the project began in Fall of 2025. A memory garden will mark the entrance and provide opportunity for contemplation and reflection, available to the public even when the centre’s interior exhibit might be closed. In the garden, the names of the Japanese Canadians who were held at Hastings Park, collected over the years by the JCHPIC Society, will be cut into pillars that emerge eight to twelve feet out of the landscape. The garden will also be the site of the Hollow Man sculpture by Jon Sasaki, an anti-monument to call attention the misdeeds of Ian Alistair Mackenzie.
The next phase of the project will be an Interpretive Centre inside the Livestock building. The Centre will provide a flexible space that can transform and change as its use evolves and expands over time and with further curatorial investment. The focal point includes a “lookout” into the expansive existing livestock building which is largely unchanged since 1942, evoking a sense of what it might have been like to have been here, segregated from other family members and unsure of what the future would bring. An installation piece will eventually fill the main exhibition room, exploring themes of absence, void, and memory. The centre will also have a community space for Vancouver’s Japanese community to meet, show films, host small performances, or share stories.
Read more about the Japanese Canadian Hastings Park Interpretive Centre Society in the media below:
Vancouver Sun: Council votes yes to Japanese Canadian Hastings Park Interpretive Centre
Daily Hive: New centre at Hastings Park to honour Japanese Canadian internment