私たちについて
A living record of Japanese Canadian art
The directory began as a printed book. It is now an open, searchable record of Japanese Canadian artists working in every discipline — Issei painters whose work predates the internet, and Yonsei filmmakers releasing work this year.
Much of this work was never catalogued, and some of it was lost outright — to displacement, to internment, to time. Recording it is how the community keeps it, and how the next curator, researcher, or student finds it.
Our mandate
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Record
Document artists whose work would otherwise go unlisted, including those no longer living.
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Connect
Let curators, programmers, researchers and audiences find artists and contact them directly.
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Carry forward
Hand the record to the next generation in a form they can keep adding to.
- Artists listed
- 487Across 10 disciplines
- Legacy profiles
- 184Kept by families and researchers
- Generations
- 一世 → 五世Issei through Gosei
- First printed edition
- 1977Online since 2015
日本語のご案内
「日系カナダ人アーティスト・ディレクトリ」は、カナダで活動する日系アーティストの記録です。美術、音楽、演劇、写真、工芸、文学など、分野を問わず作家を検索できます。日本語ページでは、ご登録の手順と最新のお知らせをご覧いただけます。
This site is also published in Japanese.
作家一覧
487 artists, in one searchable place
Search by name. Filter by discipline, generation, or region. Every profile carries the artist’s own words, their work, and a way to reach them — including the 184 artists no longer living, whose records are kept here by families and researchers.
俳句
The Great Canadian Haiku Project
Three lines each, sent in by Japanese Canadians across the country and published as cards by the NAJC. The wall turns to show another.
- “Daruma sits still / One black eye watching the world / Hoping to see more.” — Tamiko Nicholson
- “The flash of wild feet / An ocean, a century / The drum beats between” — Ron Yamauchi
- “I was Japanese / Now I am Canadian / Flourishing here now” — Frank Nakashima
- “backwards fall into / cloudy tofu pail water / buoyant, cool, and sour” — Sorcha Tokiwa Gibson
お知らせ
News & notices
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14 Jul 2026 Opportunity
Call for submissions: Powell Street Festival 2026
Applications for the performance and visual arts programme close 30 September. Open to artists at any career stage.
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28 Jun 2026 Directory
Twelve legacy profiles added this spring
New records for artists working between 1930 and 1975, contributed by families and researchers in three provinces.
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2 Jun 2026 Feature
In conversation: three Yonsei filmmakers on making work about ancestry
What changes when the story you are telling is your grandparents’? A roundtable with artists from the directory.
JCAD Newsletter
New profiles, exhibition news, calls for submissions and community notices — a few times a year, never more.
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Studio visits, new work from the directory, and pieces of the archive we come across.
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