Jim Wong-Chu Photographs 1973-1981: "People, Place, Politics"

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"People, Place, Politics" exhibition image

From Jim Wong-Chu Photographs 1973-1981: "People, Place, Politics".

Jim Wong-Chu: Photographs 1973–1981: People, Place, Politics consists of nearly 100 black-and-white photographs taken by Jim Wong-Chu during the years he attended Emily Carr, then known as the Vancouver School of Art. The photographs personally selected by the artist from hundreds of shots he took during that period include works from his Pender Street East series, various community photos and protest images from the drive to save BBQ Pork, the democratization of Chinese Benevolent Associations, and the Quebec-Columbia Connector Freeway protests.

Witness to and participant in much of the Chinese Canadian activism in the 1970s and early 80s, Jim became one of its documenters. After completing a degree in Creative Writing at UBC in the 1980s Jim published Chinatown Ghosts (Arsenal Pulp Press, 1986), the first book of poetry published by an Asian Canadian. As a persistent activist and cultural producer Jim co-founded the Asian Canadian Writers Workshop, Ricepaper Magazine, Pender Guy Radio, the Asian Canadian Performing Arts Resource (ACPAR), literASIAN: A Festival of Pacific Rim Asian Canadian Writing and the Vancouver Asian Heritage Month Festival. With the sheer girth of his activity Jim has been instrumental in creating a cultural scene inclusive of Asian Canadian talent.

This exhibition of Jim’s photographs is an important addition to the exhibition history of Centre A in how, in the tradition of Redress Express (2007) and other such exhibitions it contributes to and gives a cultural-historical perspective on conversations about confronting and overcoming discrimination. Uniquely, this rare collection of photographs draws a portrait of Vancouver’s Chinatown in a moment in time when the community was resolute to not take discriminatory policies sitting down.