The Vancouver museum of Japanese art, the JAM, has been open to the public since 1892.
It’s located on Vancouver Island, a city that, for all its charms, has long been a haven for Japanese art collectors.
The JAM has a collection of more than 5,000 Japanese paintings, sculptures, ceramics, ceratons, prints and other items that include works by Akira Kurosawa, Takashi Murakami, Ai Weiwei and others.
(Photo: Courtesy of the Jams art collection)The museum’s curator, Lisa Lasko, says it was difficult for the Japanese artist to get a home.
“He was very isolated,” she said.
“And he had a lot of anxiety because he didn’t know what to do.
So we needed to create spaces where people could see what he was seeing and feel it.”
That’s how the JAMS created a space to hold the Japanese artists.
Laskow says they needed a place where people can feel their connection to Japanese art and the Japanese people.
“We have a special place for Japanese artists, because we know that Japanese people are the most important part of our culture, so the only way to create that connection with them is through art,” she explained.
The JAM also provides a space for Japanese people to interact with their art.
And for the first time ever, it opened its doors to people from other cultures, including the Philippines.
It’s not just the Japanese art that has made the JAm’s art museum home.
It has also featured works by Filipino artists.
(For more stories about Japanese art visit our Japanese section.)
“They’re like people who have never lived in Japan,” said curator and art history expert David Lister.
“They’re Japanese, Filipino and Asian.
And they have an affinity for Japanese culture and have always been attracted to Japanese artists.”
The JAMS has been a home for Japanese artist Akira Kuroyama and other Japanese artists who have lived in the city.
The museum opened in the summer of 2018.
(The Globe and Mail)The Jams Japanese gallery is the second in the JAPAN ART MUSEUM, which has been running in Vancouver since 1891.
Lister said that the first was opened in 1902.
The gallery, which features works by Kuroyamas works, has also opened its gallery doors to Filipino artists who live in Vancouver.
“It’s just a wonderful, unique opportunity to come in and see the artists who were born and raised in Vancouver,” Lister told The Globe and Miners.
The first Japanese art museum in Canada opened in Vancouver in the 1960s.
The building was renamed the JANAMI, and in 1981, it became the JASM in honour of Japanese immigrants to Vancouver.
In 2016, it was named the best art museum of the year by the prestigious Vancouver Museum of Contemporary Art.
Lister, who is a founding member of the Japanese-Canadian art community, said the JANS was the perfect place to open its doors.
“The JANS is such a special museum because it is such an intimate space for people to come and see Japanese art,” he said.
“And it’s such a place for people who are interested in Japanese culture to come, because it’s so close to their communities.”