Tides & Moons: Herring Capital, 2022
multi-media installation; watercolour on paper and digital animation, porcelain, wood automaton, mixed media puppetry
12 minutes, 37 seconds 

Developed for a 2022 exhibition at the Nanaimo Art Gallery, Tides & Moons: Herring Capitalshares memories and stories from Japanese Canadian fishing and boat-building families who populated Nanaimo, BC, shorelines before World War II. In the early 1920s, Japanese Canadian fishers lived and worked in Nanaimo at Hammond Bay (also known as Kujira Bay), Departure Bay, Shack Island (a way station for salmon and coho fishers traveling north), and Saysutshun. While Nanaimo had been known as a coal town for half a century, it also had 43 Japanese-owned and operated herring salteries. Due to the unexplainable abundance of this fish during a short window of time and a demand for salted herring as an important export to Asia, Nanaimo became known as a herring capital.

Anti-Japanese sentiment had been growing in Canada and the United States during WWII. When Japan attacked the naval base at Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941, wartime blackout measures went into effect along BC’s coast. The Canadian Navy assembled and began to collect the Japanese Canadian-owned fishing vessels from along the coast in what was justified as a “defensive measure.” These boats were transported to New Westminster where they were moored until being auctioned off by the Office of the Custodian of Enemy Property.

Along with the seizure and sale of the fishing vessels, the Government of Canada prohibited Japanese Canadians from fishing for the duration of WWII and uprooted approximately 22,000 Japanese Canadians to internment camps in the Interior of BC. The men in these camps were often separated from their families and forced to do roadwork and other physical labour.  Many of the women, young children and elderly were relocated to distant and abandoned BC mining towns from Slocan in the West Kootneys to Kamloops in the Southern Interior. From the mass uprooting, approximately 4,000 Japanese Canadians were sent to work on sugar beet farms in Alberta and Manitoba, to help fill labour shortages, and another 700 men were sent to prisoner of war camps in Ontario. 

The actions taken against Japanese Canadians during internment resulted in the dismantling of their community through mass displacement. In August 1988, a redress agreement was reached between the National Association of Japanese Canadians and the federal government. On September 22, 1988, then‐Prime Minister Brian Mulroney formally apologized in the House of Commons to all Japanese Canadians.

Cindy Mochizuki’s work Tides & Moons: Herring Capital uses animation, miniature sets, and storytelling props to reimagine the complex relationships between salt, shorelines, and marginalized labour. Employing memory work, archival research, and oral histories, Mochizuki focuses on the vibrant lives of these culturally-significant fishing communities and the abundance of herring on the West Coast at that time. This multi-media work brings accounts of the past together with fantastical worlds to encourage new understandings of this important aspect of Japanese Canadian history.

Crew/Collaborator Credits
Animation Assistance and Composition, Puppet Assistance: Cherry Wen Wen Lu
Editor: Candelario Andrade
Sound Designer: Antoine Bédard
Voice Performer: Maiko Yamamoto
Taiko Drummers: Sawagi Taiko
Research Assistant: Jacob Willcott
Ceramic support: Julia Chirka
Carpenter: Minoru Yamamoto
Special thanks to: Eiko Eby, Mas Fukawa, Tami Hirasawa, Frances Nakagawa, 7 Potatoes/ Nana-Imo, Bill Merilees, Jim Sawada, Jesse Birch, Shane Phillipson and Nanaimo Art Gallery, and Linda Reid and Lisa Uyeda of the National Nikkei Museum and Cultural Centre.  

Tides & Moons: Herring Capital was produced with the financial assistance from the British Columbia Arts Council as a solo exhibition at Nanaimo Art Gallery.