Japanese Canadian Hastings Park Interpretive Centre
Vancouver, BC
Ongoing
The JCHPIC tells 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.
A names memorial marks the entrance and provides opportunity for contemplation and reflection. Names of the Japanese Canadians who were held at Hastings Park, collected over the years by the JCHPIC Society, are cut into triangular pillars that emerge eight to twelve feet out of the landscape. Across the access walkway, the Hollow Man sculpture by Jon Sasaki is perched, an anti-monument to call attention the misdeeds of Ian Alistair Mackenzie.
The next phase of the project is an Interpretive Centre inside the Livestock building. The Centre provides 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.
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
CBC: 6000 Names Memorialize Japanese People Detailed in Vancouver During World War II
CBC: Vancouver Memorial Honours Japanese Canadians Interned During World War II
City News: Memorial Honouring Japanese Canadians Incarcerated at Hastings Park Opens