A solo exhibit by photographer Emily Hanako Momohara will be featured in the Spiva Art Gallery at Missouri Southern.
“De/Tension/Past: Landscapes of American Incarceration” will run Tuesday, Sept. 7, through Friday, Sept. 24. This exhibition is a featured event during the Fall 2021’s Japan Semester. A virtual artist talk will take place at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 9, in Webster Hall’s Corley Auditorium, with a reception to follow.
The event will also be offered via Zoom at:
https://mssuedu.zoom.us/j/94490152499?pwd=c3JKZEE2WXhYQWU2TlFwSlN5bXhIZz09
Passcode: 722867
In 1942, nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese immigrants were incarcerated in U.S. concentration camps for the duration of World War II. Between 1999 and 2014, Momohara traveled to several of the former sites of incarceration, photographing the visual remains of the wartime imprisonment infrastructure.
Momohara re-photographed her original images, reframing and reflecting on the parallels between the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans and the incarceration of migrants and the separation of families at the U.S.-Mexico border.
“This is only relevant if we do something with it,” she said. “If we don’t, then it is in the past. It is only relevant if we can look at it and see that these mistakes were made before and we don’t need to make them again.”
Admission is free and open to the public. Gallery hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Friday.