Amache, Japanese-American Concentration Camp, Colorado, July 29, 1994 / A-4-10-4 (from the series Japanese-American Concentration Camps)

Nagatani’s series “Japanese-American Concentration Camp” includes images made at the United States’ ten Relocation Camps where Japanese Americans were isolated and forced to live in the early 1940s. A selection of 125 of the prints were assembled into a portfolio of the same name (Center for Creative Photography in Tucson has a complete portfolio). The artist’s donation to the museum is not a complete portfolio and includes additional photographs that were not a part of that set.  See object file for a copy of the portfolio text including all titles of work included therein, many of which are part of this donation.

Patrick Nagatani was born in 1945 to two Nisei (second-generation Japanese Americans), both of whom had been incarcerated at Relocation Camps. His mother Diane and her brother were held at Manzanar, California, while their father was held at a Justice Department Detention Camp in Santa Fe, as he was a veteran of the Japanese Army and considered a greater threat. His father John and family were held at the Relocation Camp in Jerome, Arkansas, and John’s father died there.

According to the artist, the numerical code at the end of each titled print can be understood as follows: the first number is the designation of the print within the group of the particular camp; the second number is the total images made of the particular camp; and the third number is an overall identification of the print in the entire series of 125 images.

Typically known for his photographic narratives and colorful constructed imagery, Patrick Nagatani shifts to a more documentary style in his series “Japanese-American Concentration Camps.” In the early 1990s, the artist traveled to and photographed the sites of ten inland camps created by the U.S. government during World War II to forcibly detain citizens of Japanese descent. Families across the nation were required to leave their homes, businesses, land, and property to live in these isolated camps under challenging conditions. Among them were Nagatani’s parents, who were both incarcerated as young adults, his mother at Manzanar and his father at Jerome; his maternal grandfather was separated from his family and held at the Justice Department Internment Camp in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Nagatani’s parents later met married in Chicago, Illinois and, like many prisoners of war, did not discuss their incarceration with their children. The artist and his siblings grew into adulthood knowing very little of their parents’ experiences. This photographic series was his way to explore and claim that family history.

The images created during his travels represent desolate areas with ruins and monuments created where the camps with thousands of detainees had once been. The horizon often bisects earth and sky creating a static equilibrium that directs the viewer both to the foreground elements and the often empty distance.

Patrick Nagatani retired as a Professor from the Department of Art and Art History at the University of New Mexico in 2006 after teaching art/photography for 20 years.