Art of Survival: Enduring the Turmoil of Tule Lake

Description

An exploration of the only Japanese American Segregation Center in WWII connects visitors to the complex issues of interment in the voices of those held captive.

Art of Survival is a traveling exhibition probing the complexity of the Japanese American confinement site in Newell, CA. It became the only officially designated segregation center during WWII and was ruled under martial law. Called Tule Lake, this location was the largest of the 10 confinement sites and, because anyone deemed a troublemaker by the federal government was relocated to Tule Lake, it ultimately housed people from all sites. Many of the people who were brought in under segregation were people who knew their rights had been egregiously undermined and were willing to stand up to the injustice. Accused of being disloyal, in their dissent, they were ironically acting in the most American way. The incarceration of 120,000 people of Japanese descent, most citizens of this nation, was a travesty; Tule Lake was exponentially disturbing.

Through haunting images of artifacts by fine art photographer Hiroshi Watanabe we glimpse into the lives of those who were held at Tule Lake and are encouraged to consider both the orchestration of life behind barbed wire and what it might have been like to live with constant turmoil and uncertainty. Oral histories allow us to hear varying views on some of the complex issues of Tule Lake in the voices of those held captive.

Art of Survival is being supported in part by a Preservation of Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant administered by the National Park Service, Department of the Interior. Further support provided by The Oregon Community Foundation, Fred W. Fields Fund; Klamath Tourism Grant; Klamath Arts Council Grant; and generous donations by Denshō Digital Archives, Japanese American Museum of San Jose, Tule Lake Committee members Jimi Yamaichi and Hiroshi Shimizu, and Hiroshi Watanabe. This traveling exhibition was made in cooperation with the Tule Lake Unit of WWII Valor in the Pacific National Monument, Lava Beds National Monument, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.