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Enemy Alien: Tamio Wakayama

October 3, 2025–February 22, 2026

Black-and-white photograph of a Black boy in a Superman pose

Tamio Wakayama, Boys playing in Vine City, Atlanta, Georgia (“Super Snick”), July 7, 1964, 1964, archival inkjet print, Estate of Tamio Wakayama

“In looking back, I think the best work I did was of the people.” —Tamio Wakayama

Enemy Alien is the first major solo exhibition and retrospective of works by documentary photographer Tamio Wakayama.

His career, spanning over fifty years, began with his photographs of the Civil Rights Movement in the southern United States. Wakayama documented many of the social justice movements and countercultures of the 1960s and 70s. His work tells stories of community, joy and resistance in the face of injustice. The exhibition also highlights Wakayama’s documentation of Indigenous communities in Saskatchewan and the Doukhobors of eastern BC.

The exhibition culminates with Wakayama’s activism and work organizing and documenting the Redress movement for Japanese Canadians and his deep connections to Vancouver.

Enemy Alien: Tamio Wakayama will be accompanied by an exhibition catalogue featuring Wakayama’s unpublished memoir Soul on Rice.

Organized by the Vancouver Art Gallery as an initiative of the Centre for Global Asias and guest curated by Paul Wong
  • Black-and-white photograph with a house and a detail of a cross that reads "Freedom"

    Tamio Wakayama, Burnt cross at Freedom School, Pascagoula, Mississippi, c. fall 1964, 1964, archival inkjet print, Estate of Tamio Wakayama

  • Black-and-white photograph of a woman holding a newspaper in a park amidst a protest. The cover of the newspaper says: End the War in Vietnam Now.

    Tamio Wakayama, March on Washington to Protest the War in Vietnam, Washington, D.C., April 17, 1965, 1965, silver gelatin print, Estate of Tamio Wakayama

  • Black-and-white photograph of taiko drummers at Powell Street Festival

    Tamio Wakayama, San Jose Taiko, Powell Street Festival, Vancouver, British Columbia, 1986, 1986, silver gelatin print, Estate of Tamio Wakayama

Publication

Cover of an exhibition catalogue with red, capital letters that read "Enemy Alien Tamio Wakayama." Below the title, in a smaller font, it reads: "Edited by Paul Wong." The red letters appear over a black-and-white photograph of a young, black boy with no shirt on, who smiles and beams out at the camera, while seemingly flexing his muscles.

Enemy Alien: Tamio Wakayama

Published by the Vancouver Art Gallery and Figure1 Publishing, 2025

Flexibound, 288 pages

Edited by: Paul Wong
Contributors: Eva Respini, Mayumi Takasaki, Tamio Wakayama and Paul Wong

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