What would you pack if you were forcibly removed from your home today? This is what photographer Kayla Isomura asked more than 80 fourth and fifth generation Japanese Canadians and Americans for her travelling exhibition, The Suitcase Project, which will be on view at the Museum of Vancouver starting November 20, 2025.  

In 1942, approximately 23,000 Japanese Canadians and more than 100,000 Japanese Americans living on the west coast were uprooted from their homes and placed in internment camps or incarceration.  

“In the Canadian context, Japanese Canadians were not allowed to return home, and their possessions were sold by the government or looted,” says Isomura. “If you were going to lose everything—your home, your business, your memories and personal possessions—what would you take outside of things for survival? Or would you focus on your practical needs?”  

Subjects for The Suitcase Project were given 24 to 48 hours’ notice to assemble their things, similar to what many Japanese Canadians faced in 1942. Ranging from infants to 51-year-olds, they were photographed in the Lower Mainland, Vancouver Island and Western Washington. The photos show subjects with their luggage and what they decided to pack, in addition to video interviews and information about internment/incarceration. 

“I never knew what my grandparents or great-grandparents packed with them when they were interned, so I wondered what I could survive with sentimentally and how others would interpret this idea,” says Isomura, who identifies as fourth generation Japanese Canadian. “The original idea wasn’t just about what or how people would pack, but also what they are forced to leave behind.” 

Considering current debates on belonging, citizenship and representation, and while diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives are challenged and dismantled globally, the history of internment/incarceration resonates today. The Suitcase Projects forces viewers to think, “what if it were me?”