Apache, Colorado (from the series Whispered Silences: Japanese Americans and World War II)

Artist Joan Myers (American, born 1944)

Date1985 (printed 1988)

Mediumplatinum- palladium print

DimensionsImage: 14 1/2 × 18 3/4 in. (36.8 × 47.6 cm)
Support: 18 × 23 in. (45.7 × 58.4 cm)

ClassificationsPhotograph

Credit LineGift of Joan Myers, 2017

Object number2017.5.12

DescriptionRemains of a building foundation in a Western landscape
eMuseum Notes

Emuseum Notes

Throughout her series Whispered Silences, Myers uses the camera to convey the solemn, isolated landscapes of former Japanese internment camps, highlighting physical ruins and abandoned objects. This image features the desolate site of a former bath and latrine building, with only its concrete foundation remaining. The emotional weight of the site’s history is echoed in tonal contrasts and details such as the dried earth, exposed construction and looming, bare tree limbs.

Emuseum Notes

Located near the small community of Granada in southeastern Colorado, the Granada War Relocation Center (also called Camp Amache) opened in 1942 and reached a peak population of more than 7,000 people by the beginning of the following year. It was the smallest relocation camp and most of the residents were from California. The abandoned site was designated a National Historic Site in 2006 and its sole remaining original building is a pump house.

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