Centre A hosts the catalogue launch of Henry Tsang: In Plain Sight with artist conversation on August 23
Copresentation with Surrey Art Gallery and Powell Street Festival unpacks Tsang’s Hastings Park and Tansy Point exhibitions, the basis for his new catalogue
Henry Tsang’s Hastings Park: Building A - Livestock Building North, View Looking West, 2021. Pigment ink on metallic paper, 122 x 91 cm.
Surrey Art Gallery copresents Henry Tsang: In Plain Sight catalogue launch and conversation with the Powell Street Festival at Centre A on August 23 from 7 pm to 9 pm
ARTIST HENRY TSANG is well-known in Vancouver for his innovative works that explore politics and place. Take, for example, his interactive walking-tour project, 360 Riot Walk, that traces the 1907 Anti-Asian Riots in the city; or his seawall public-art piece, Welcome to the Land of Light, about how English replaced the 19th-century trade language Chinook Jargon.
His upcoming catalogue launch at Centre A on August 23 for Henry Tsang: In Plain Sight adheres to a similar style. A copresentation with the Powell Street Festival and Surrey Art Gallery, the catalogue pulls from two of Tsang’s past exhibitions at the latter gallery: 2021’s Hastings Park, and 2022’s Tansy Point. A conversation surrounding its release will delve into key components of the artist’s photographs, such as memory, history, and built environments.
A series composed of 11 infrared photographs and a projection, Hastings Park depicts the four Second World War buildings still standing in Vancouver that once served as relocation and processing centres for more than 8,000 Japanese Canadians before they were sent to labour and internment camps. Tsang created the photographs, which show the buildings’ heat signatures, using a construction-grade thermal-imaging camera.
Tsang’s video installation Tansy Point, on the other hand, shows the site where the Anson Dart treaties were signed in 1851, a negotiation which led to the U.S. government claiming the land of Indigenous Chinook peoples. The installation is composed of a panorama photograph showing the Tansy Point peninsula at the mouth of the Columbia River.
Henry Tsang. Photo by Naiya Tsang
Along with unpacking Tsang’s works, the evening at Centre A will also hold space for a discussion with Judy Hanazawa and Dan Tokawa of the Hastings Park Commemoration and Education Project, who will discuss their most recent initiatives with the organization.
Tsang is an associate dean and professor at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. His book White Riot, which includes imagery and text from 360 Riot Walk, was shortlisted for the Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award at the BC and Yukon Book Prizes earlier this year.
Copies of the Henry Tsang: In Plain Sight catalogue, whose cover was designed by Alex Hass, will be available for purchase at the conversation. It contains essays by art curators Bryce Kanbara, Tarah Hogue, and Jordan Strom.
Hastings Park will remain on display at Centre A until August 17 as part of this year’s Powell Street Festival programming. 
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