Vancouver Art Gallery Public Art Project
Curated by Judith Mastai
This group portrait was conceived by British artist Liz Rideal, and executed at the Vancouver Art Gallery in June 1991, with assistance from seniors from the Japanese, Canadian and Jewish communities and the Senior Storytellers Group.VAG Public Programmes thanks Jernny Shaw fro her assistance, and the City of Vancouver Seabord Advertising for their support of the project.
Members of the groups inked their palms and digits making prints. Some of the Japanese participants commented that the last time they had done this (giving identity thumb prints) was after Pearl Harbour during WWII, when they were exiled to camps in the Slocan Valley, British Columbia. I enlarged the prints and combined them to make a large ink drawing (2x5m, Collection VAG). This was then reduced and made into a poster that was displayed in bus shelters across the city during the summer months.