Tamio Wakayama
Canadian artist (1941–2018)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tamio Wakayama (1941–2018) was a Canadian photographer. He is known for his photographs of the American civil rights movement.
Tamio Wakayama | |
|---|---|
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| Born | April 3, 1941 |
| Died | March 23, 2018 (aged 76) |
| Known for | photography |
Wakayama was born on April 3, 1941 in Canada.[1] A self-described Nisei,[2] his family was relocated and incarcerated at the Tashme Incarceration Camp in British Columbia through the duration of World War II.[1]
Wakayama traveled to the United States during the time of Freedom Summer. He began taking photos for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.[1] Returning to Canada, Wakayama photographed the Japanese Canadian community through the 1970s and 1980s.[3]
Wakayama died on March 23, 2018.[1]
In 2025 the Vancouver Art Gallery held a retrospective of his work entitled Enemy Alien: Tamio Wakayama.[4] Paul Wong's exhibition book, blending critical essays about Wakayama's work with photographs and excerpts from his own unpublished memoir Soul on Rice, won the Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize from the BC and Yukon Book Prizes in 2026.[5]
Wakayama's work was included in the 2025 exhibition Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955–1985 at the National Gallery of Art. [6] His work is in the collection of the National Gallery of Art,[7] and the National Gallery of Canada.[8]
He is the subject of the documentary Between Pictures: The Lens of Tamio Wakayama by Cindy Mochizuki.[9]