Vancouver

Tetsuro Shigematsu

Tetsuro Shigematsu is a writer, actor, performance artist, broadcaster, stand-up comic, scholar, filmmaker, and theatre artist. Originally trained in the fine arts, he found a similar creative outlet writing for CBC Television’s This Hour Has 22 Minutes. Then in 2004, he became the first person-of-colour to host a daily national radio program in Canada when […]

Jay Hirabayashi

Jay Hirabayashi was born in Seattle, Washington in 1947, but grew up in Beirut, Lebanon, Cairo, Egypt, and Edmonton, Alberta. He has a B.A. degree from the University of Alberta and a M.A. degree from the UBC in Buddhist philosophy. In 1978, Hirabayashi began a career as a dance artist. After performing with several prominent […]

Manami Hara

Manami Hara was born and raised in Tokyo Japan. She became fascinated with Western theatre and the English language and at the age of 18, left Japan home to become a stage actor in North America. She moved to Vancouver, took ESL classes and graduated from Studio 58, a two-year conservatory Theatre Arts program at […]

Linda Uyehara Hoffman

Linda Uyehara Hoffman has been a taiko (Japanese drum) player for over 30 years. She was a founding member of Katari Taiko, the first taiko group in Canada, and of Sawagi Taiko, the first all-women’s taiko group in North America, with whom she continues to perform. As a folksinger/guitarist, she sang in coffee houses in […]

Haruko Okano

Haruko Okano is a process-based, collaborative, multidisciplinary, mixed media artist whose practice aims to break away from traditional, Eurocentric genres to integrate elements of her Japanese ancestry as well as holistic traditions of hunter-gatherer cultures. Okano also guides her practice with her concerns for the natural environment and the planet’s preservation, often using recycled materials […]

Linda Ohama

Linda Ohama is a filmmaker (producer and director) with an extensive history of integrating community, historical, and social justice initiatives in and around her films. She is also well known for her print, Watari Dori (A Bird of Passage), which was produced and sold in the 1980s to raise funds and awareness for the Redress […]

Harry Aoki

Harry Hiro-o Aoki was a Nisei harmonica and stand-up bass player, known for his musical virtuosity and his enthusiasm for fostering intercultural understanding through music. Born in Cumberland, BC, the second son of two Japanese Language School teachers, Harry grew up listening to Bach and Duke Ellington, and debating intellectual and social ideas around the […]

Martin Kobayakawa

Martin Kobayakawa is a guitarist and songwriter who was a member of the Vancouver folk-rock band Number One Son. He performed at the first Powell Street Festival in 1977 alongside Terry Watada, and also appeared on Watada’s album Runaway Horses (original vinyl release and the re-release on CD. He is a versatile musician proficient on […]

Kiyoshi Matsuzaki

Kiyoshi Matsuzaki was an architect. He was born in Shanghai, China to parents from Steveston, BC, and grew up in Tokyo. At age 18, Matsuzaki began his architectural studies at the Rhode Island School of Design, and worked at a firm in Hamden, Connecticut for some years after graduation, where he met his wife, fellow […]

Noriko Kim Kobayashi

Noriko Kobayashi is a musician. She earned a M.A. degree in Ethnomusicology from the University of British Columbia, in addition to a B.A. in Music and Psychology from U.B.C. She also earned a music degree from Capilano College in classical voice studies and is also a published author on the subject of taiko. Prior to […]

Joyce Kamikura

Joyce Kamikura is a painter and print-maker. She was one of the first Canadians to be bestowed Signature Member of the National Watercolor Society (NWS – USA). She was also one of the first women to be given the top ranking title in the Federation of Canadian Artists as a Senior Signature Member (SFCA). Exhibitions […]

Stanley Fukawa

Stanley Toshinori Fukawa is a Nisei sociologist, community organizer, historian and writer. He organized the Mid-Island Japanese Canadian Society, affectionately called the ‘Seven Potatoes’ (nana imo) Society and served as the writer/editor/publisher of their newsletter. He also wrote numerous articles for and served on the editorial committee of Nikkei Images, the journal of the Nikkei […]

Masako Fukawa

Masako Fukawa (nee Shinde) is a Sansei educator and writer. Born in Prince Rupert BC, she was removed from Steveston and relocated to the ghost town of Greenwood. Returned to Steveston in 1951, attended UBC, the University of Michigan, University of Victoria and taught in Japan and in Nanaimo. She developed resources for teachers and […]

Lotus Miyashita

Lotus Miyashita is an artist and graphic designer based in Vancouver. She graduated from Vancouver Community College and Emily Carr College of Art & Design. Her early design work includes The Bulletin/Geppo in the early 1990s, and the 1994 print directory “Japanese Canadians in the Arts” and she has also done design work for a […]

E. Kage

E. Kage is a Taiko artist/performer and a digital audio artist. Born in Japan growing up in Canada, they embraced the art of Taiko as a way to express their empowerment as a mixed race queer youth. Since the 1980s they co-founded several Taiko/music groups touring parts of Europe and North America. Their digital audio […]