Heart Mountain, Japanese-American Concentration Camp, Wyoming, June 3, 1995

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.