Joy Kogawa featured in
"The Party" at Royal BC Museum
To celebrate BC's 150th Anniversary, the Royal BC Museum "gathers a glorious crowd of 150 British Columbians - famous and infamous, living and dead - so you can explore their fascinating stories."
It's called "The Party"
And Joy Kogawa is one of them!
As well as fellow Asian-Canadians Dr. David Suzuki, Tong Louie and the Hon. David Lam.
Fellow authors Douglas Coupland, Susan Musgrave, Jane Rule, Dorothy Livesay, P.K. Page and Emily Carr.
Community activists such as Guujaw, Svend Robinson, Nellie McClung, Betty Krawzyck, and the Raging Grannies.
Musicians include David Foster, Sara Mclachlan, Diana Krall, DOA, The Collectors and Bryan Adams and artists Gathie Falk, BC Binning, Tony Onley and Robert Davidson.
Architects include George Rattenbury, Cornelia Oberlander, Arthur Erickson, and James Cheng.
Politicians include the James Douglas - the first governor of BC, W.A.C. Bennett, Grace McCarthy, Dave Barrett, Amor de Cosmos, Rosemary Brown and Emery Barnes - also a former BC Lions football player.
Our visit to the BC Royal Museum was a very exciting one. Last year, the BC Royal Museum had contacted author Joy Kogawa because they wanted to include a full length picture of her for an exhibit celebrating 150 years of BC history. But Joy didn't like the picture that the museum had selected, and the pictures Joy did like weren't completely full length. I offered that my girlfriend Deb and I would do a photo session for Joy. The pictures turned out wonderfully and the museum was happy when we sent them 6 pictures to choose from.
At the museum, we were soon met by my friend, author Gary Geddes and his wife Anne. Gary had already seen the exhibit and said it was quite good. We got our guest passes and followed him up. As we entered the exhibit room, we quickly saw all the life size photos arranged like a celebratory birthday cake. It is a riot of images of famous British Columbians in many different poses. Some black and white, some colour. Quickly catching my eye was the photo of Bryan Adams, and then an almost naked Dr. David Suzuki. Rick Hansen in his wheelchair. Terry Fox up high, wearing his "Marathon of Hope" t-shirt.
But where was Joy?
We followed Gary around to the other side, my eyes constantly stopping on every image I saw - wanting to identify each figure, but at the same time keep moving to find Joy.
It's a nice photo of Joy, and the photo credit is attributed to Todd Wong. Cool!
You can see the full length photo and bio of Joy at: