about the work
Tagged - Detail Tagged

"Tagged" required three years to complete and is a meditation on the nature of ethnic prejudice. As the child of a Japanese-American, I was exposed at a very young age to this tragic piece of American history. "Tagged" is presented on 15 mounted panels and one book stand.

Images are photo transferred onto solid-sculpted glass tongues. The majority of the photographs are altered reproductions of photos by Dorothea Lange taken for the War Relocation Authority during the period that Japanese-Americans were forcibly relocated to internment camps from 1942 to 1944. The book shows an actual family photograph from the Topaz Internment Camp, with my mother shown as a young girl seated at the right. The newspaper clippings, primarily from the New York Times, are about current ethnic prejudice directed against Arab-Americans. All the clippings are from Sept. 11, 2001 to 2004 when the piece was completed.

Photography by Hans-Jurgen Bergmann