Hastings Park

Hastings Park is a series of 11 colour photographs and an infrared projection installation depicting the four remaining buildings in Vancouver where over 8,000 Japanese Canadians were temporarily located and processed prior to being sent off to labour and internment camps during World War II. 

Prior to 1942 and after the war, Hastings Park was the site of the city’s horseraces and where the Pacific National Exhibition (PNE) took place every summer with its baby pig races, livestock competitions, mini donuts and demolition derby. 

The images were created using a thermal imaging camera developed for the construction industry. Thermal imaging can detect subtle differences in temperature, and is especially useful in exposing leaks and fissures that would signal issues with what is beneath the surface. 

The infrared projection is imperceptible to the human eye, and is made visible by an infrared-detecting camera aimed at the projection screen, located behind the viewer who is also captured by the camera and shown in front of the projection on a monitor.

The thermal imaging camera functions as a medium through which these buildings are asked, “Do you remember the time when people lived inside you? If so, are there any traces left behind? What else has happened within that we can’t see?” The intention was to use such a camera to expose these buildings in a new light.