British Columbia

Lauren Brevner

Lauren Brevner is a multidisciplinary artist based in Vancouver B.C on the unceded territories of the Coast Salish Peoples, including the territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Her Japanese-Trinidadian heritage deeply inspires her practice with a focus on matriarchal influence. Her work combines traditional approaches to portrait painting with themes […]

Yuta Takenaka

Born in Japan and raised in Vancouver, Yuta Takenaka is a Japanese-Canadian actor, writer and audiobook narrator. Graduating with an English degree in the hopes of becoming a writer, his acting ambitions began when he worked as a background performer in 2004’s “Godzilla” and witnessed one of his heroes, Ken Watanabe acting on set. Since […]

Angela May

Angela May (neé Kruger) is a visual artist, writer, scholar, and community activist. Across all of these forums, Angela’s work explores the politics of loss, especially in her home of Vancouver, British Columbia, and particularly in the city’s Downtown Eastside. Her first major public artwork, a creative video called dear community, interrogated the politics of […]

Mayumi Yoshida

Born in Japan, raised in three continents, Mayumi Yoshida is an actor, writer, director, based in Vancouver, BC. She is known for her role as Crown Princess (The Man in The High Castle, Amazon Prime) which got her a nomination for Best Emerging Actor at UBCP Awards. As an award-winning writer/director, Mayumi has been a […]

Kirsten McAllister

Kirsten Emiko McAllister is a Professor in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University. She grew up with her two brothers on the territories of Snuneymuxw Nation in what is now called Nanaimo in British Columbia. Both sides of her family, the Nakashimas / Mukai and the McAllisters / McQuarries have lived on the […]

Kimiko Fraser

Kimiko Fraser is an illustrator and historian-in-training based on the beautiful West Coast of British Columbia. She grew up constantly making—drawing, painting, knitting, sculpting, bookbinding etc—and has never learned how to stop. Kimiko earned a degree in Bachelor of Arts, Honours History, Major Visual Arts from the University of Victoria. Kimiko works with many mediums […]

Hannah Mariko Bell

Hannah is a proud fourth generation Japanese Canadian raised on Treaty 7 Territory within Blackfoot Confederacy lands (Calgary, Alberta). She is a neurodivergent artist and a member of the LGBTQIA2S+ community who identifies as pansexual. These identities, as well as her Japanese Canadian heritage, inform her artistic practice and place equity and accessibility at the […]

Gordy Tong

Sophia Wolfe

Sophia Wolfe is a dance artist who also works in visual media including photography, film, and video art. She typically is from Vancouver, Canada on unceded Coast Salish territories, of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations and is currently in London completing her MA in Screendance at the London Contemporary Dance School. […]

Eiko Ishiwata

Eiko started professionally composing music for video games and film in 2002. In addition to strengths in composition she is a multi-instrumentalist who has fine-tuned her sound engineering by studying + teaching at the Art Institute of Vancouver, studied classical animation at Sheridan College and was a graduate of The Bishop Strachan School. Eiko received […]

Terrie Hamazaki

Terrie Hamazaki (she/her) is a Vancouver based writer who holds a Master of Arts Degree in Creative and Critical Writing (UK). She performed her plays at the Fringe and Women in View Performing Arts Festivals. Her writing has appeared in Swelling with Pride: Queer Conception and Adoption Stories (Caitlin Press), Sustenance (Writers from BC and […]

Shion Skye Carter

Shion Skye Carter is a performing artist originally from Tajimi, Japan, and based in Vancouver, Canada. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Dance and Kinesiology from Simon Fraser University. As a performer, she has interpreted the works of artists such as Vanessa Goodman/Action at a Distance, plastic orchid factory, and Yossi Berg […]

Takako Suzuki

“Takako Suzuki is a Japanese-born potter who practiced in Vancouver prior to her retirement. She studied at Meiji University in Tokyo, and after immigrating to Canada, at Emily Carr College of Art & Design. Her work was shown in a number of solo and group exhibitions in the 1980s and 1990s, primarily in Vancouver, and […]

Teiya Kasahara 笠原 貞野

Nikkei-Canadian settler Teiya Kasahara 笠原 貞野 (they/them) is a queer, trans non-binary, interdisciplinary creator-performer based in Tkarón:to (Toronto). Heralded as “a force of nature” (Toronto Star) and “an artist with extraordinary things to say” (The Globe and Mail) Teiya comes from a background of over a decade of singing both traditional and contemporary operatic roles […]

Chieri Uegaki

Chieri is a second generation Japanese-Canadian and writer of books for young readers. She graduated from the University of British Columbia’s Creative Writing Department with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and has written stories for Pearson Education, and the children’s magazines Chirp and chickaDEE. Her first picture book was Suki’s Kimono, followed by Rosie and […]