Family Portraits is a photographic series that is part of a larger interdisciplinary project called Between Landscape and Memory. The project explores the landscape of Tulelake Segregation Center where my family was imprisoned. This is one of many prison camps where Japanese Americans during World War II were forcibly removed to. I wanted to explore the relationship between human experiences and the land and how that shapes how we relate to a place. While researching I became aware of the layers of human history and traumas in at the site, starting with the Modoc people, continuing through the Japanese incarceration of World War II and continuing into modern times in relation to farming and immigration. I began to draw connections between the physical layers of the earth being deposited and the emotional layers being accumulating in each generation of person. The caves are located nearby the Tulelake and offer a window into the earth but also into ourselves. Each one represents a family member that was imprisoned in the camp.
Archival pigment prints
60” x 40”
2017
