The Suitcase Project – Opening Reception

Exhibition Opening and Artist Talk by Kayla Isomura

Kayla Isomura will share her personal account of the creation process of the project.

‘While this started as a question of dispossession, it more broadly became a conversation about the legacy of this history today, whether related to personal identity, family, community or global politics’ says Isomura.

Exhibition: June 2 – 30, 2023

What would you take with you if you were given a moment’s notice to pack up and leave your home, uncertain if you would ever return?

This question was a reality for about 22,000 Japanese Canadians living on the BC coast in 1942, including 77 people who were living here on Salt Spring Island.

Isomura’s multimedia exhibit brings us the experience and history of the Japanese Canadian community’s mass uprooting and internment in the 1940s in a personal way that we can feel and connect with.

Through her photography and video of the participants’ packing process, supplemented by local archival photos, we will learn about this dark chapter of Canadian history and connect with how it impacts us today. It is also an opportunity to reflect on the uprooting and dispossession of people around the world due to natural disasters, political instability, and war.

Kayla Isomura is a Vancouver-based photographer currently exploring intergenerational trauma and racialized identity.

Presented by the Japanese Garden Society of Salt Spring Island.
Sponsored by the Salt Spring Island Public Library.
The exhibition’s community talks and workshop are funded by the Salt Spring Foundation.
This mini traveling version of the Suitcase Project is a loan from the Nikkei National Museum.
Archival photographs are courtesy of the Salt Spring Island Archives.