White Riot
The 1907 Anti-Asian Riots in Vancouver
White Riot explores the conditions leading up to and the impact of a demonstration and parade in Vancouver, Canada, organized by the Asiatic Exclusion League and the ensuing mob attack on the city’s Chinese and Japanese Canadian communities. Emblematic of a systemically racist era, White Riot reveals the social and political environment of the time, when racialised communities were targeted through legislated as well as physical acts of exclusion and violence.
Based on 360 Riot Walk, a 360-degree video walking tour by artist and author Henry Tsang, Whit Riot offers an intersectional approach to this pivotal moment in the history of racialised communities and a cultural and social context for understanding for the current wave of anti-Asian sentiment. It features photographs of the riots colourized by Tsang as well as those of contemporary Vancouver where the riots took place. Essays by Tsang and others speak to the colonial times that preceded and followed the 1907 riots, as well as issues that Chinese and Japanese diasporic communities (and other racialised communities) around the world are facing today. White Riot poses the question: in the current ethos of anti-racism and decolonisation, what does it take to reconcile our collective histories within the legacy of white supremacy?
Henry Tsang is an artist who explores the spatial politics of history, language, community, food, and cultural translation in relationship to place. His artworks take the form of gallery exhibitions, 360-degree video walking tours, curated dinners, and public art. Henry teaches at Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver.
