Roger Shimomura: "Minidoka on My Mind"

Jon Popham May 26, 2008 | 3:16 pm EST

Roger Shimomura´s exhibit at the Flomenhaft in NYC reflects his own experience of one of the greatest disgraces in US History, the Japanese internment of WWII. Shimomura was two years old when his family was forced by the US Government to move from their home in Seattle to the Minidoka internment camp in Idaho. The family was amongst 120,000 Japanese-Americans rounded up after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The family was eventually permitted to return to home when Shimomura was five years old.

To reconstruct the experience of his family the artist used the writings of grandmother, Toku, who kept a meticulous diary of their time at Minidoka. Shimomura uses a combination of American Pop Art and traditional Japanese ukiyo-e prints embued with scenes of a childhood lived within the confines of barbed wire in the installation “Minidoka on My Mind”.

You can to curb in tolerance in our time by learning more about the work of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.