You don’t need to wait any longer to get out

(Sanctuary is a practice series)
paper sculpture from various recycled papers with digital prints of archival documents and paper thread
sculpture: 20″ x 24″ x 7″  // print: 68″ x 47.25″
2018

During the WWII internment of Japanese Americans, resistance and proto-sanctuaries took many forms. This piece juxtaposes references to government sanctioned programs with community members’ efforts. In Oregon, the government arranged for the limited work release of JAs to exploit their labor in sugar beet fields (a byproduct of sugar beet processing was used in the manufacture of bullets during the war). One broadside advertisement appealing to Japanese Americans declared, “You don’t need to wait any longer to get out.”

The frame structure at the edge of this sculpture is a reference to the remains of an old encampment in the San Bernardino mountains, rumored to be the former shelter for a small group of Japanese Americans who fled to the mountains to escape incarceration. Regardless of the veracity of this attribution, the description echoes the many stories of Japanese Americans who fled or hid their families to escape.

Even in the camps, Japanese Americans found ways to continue creating art and assert their culture with the resources they had on hand. Elements within this sculpture, including mizuhiki knot work, origami and other papercrafts, are a nod to the work of internees to maintain their cultural identity in a system punishing them for who they were.

For more information about Japanese American farm labor history see: Uprooted 

Sanctuary is a Practice is a series of objects that explore the histories of communities who have had to self-organize or create alliances with other groups to build their own sanctuaries, systems of mutual aid, and resilient cultures in the face of injustice and xenophobia. These pieces take the form of imagined talismans that invoke a sense of protection and resistance to adverse forces by combining cultural references and archival materials to tell a story about the practice of collective survival.

The series was commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission – Public Art Program‘s Art on Market Street Kiosk Poster Series (a project co-funded by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency). The artists selected for 2018 were asked to create work exploring the theme of “sanctuary” and San Francisco’s role as a Sanctuary City.

sculpture photograph by Kija Lucas, street installation photos by WT