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

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.