FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHS AS COLLECTIVE MEMORY

Presented in 2024, at the 27th Annual VISUAL IMPETUS Art History and Visual Studies Graduate Student Conference, at the University of Victoria

Theme of the conference was All Art is Propaganda

This presentation is based on a field course I took in the summer of 2023 with Dr. Jordan Stanger-Ross, and the Landscapes of Injustice project. During the intensive month long field course, university students, Canadian teachers, and various individuals who represented different international orginizations dedicated to preserving and showcasing the history of the Japanese diaspora, spent a week on a tour bus with individuals and families who had experienced incarceration at the hands of the Canadian government. 

In visiting the sites of incarceration and hearing first and secondhand accounts of life in these camps, I became very interested in the photographs taken by incarcerated Japanese Canadians. 

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Japanese Canadian Family photographs taken while incarcerated feature characteristic themes of family photography within unusual circumstances.

I argued that during incarceration, Japanese Canadians used photography to assert individuality and retain ownership of their identity. 

This control is layered and can be seen in the control maintained by the photographers, the control of the subjects of the photographs in how they present themselves, and in controlling how these photographs are shared and what information is provided to viewers. 

The act of creating through photography reveals perseverance and resilience despite government policies which had been designed to prevent this.  

The methods of sharing these photographs reveal different perceptions and feelings towards incarceration. 

Through examining photographs of incarceration, we learn how these photographers viewed their lives and how they wanted to remember their lives.