Sarah Fukami: Reflections on Amache

Parker Arts, Culture & Events Center

20000 Pikes Peak Avenue, Parker, CO 80138

September 14-November 12, 2023

Admission: Free

Review by MG Bernard

Currently on view at the Parker Arts, Culture & Events Center until November 12, 2023 is a solo exhibition of work by Sarah Fukami entitled Reflections on Amache. From cut Plexiglas® to lithography, and personal documents to government archives, Fukami uses a variety of media to layer her family’s history and the immigrant experience as Japanese Americans living during World War II.

Fukami was born and raised in Colorado and received her BFA from the University of Denver in 2014. [1] Since that time, she has exhibited her work across the Front Range in venues such as PlatteForum, the Denver Art Museum, the Arvada Center, and Art Gym.

An installation view of Sarah Fukami’s exhibition *Reflections on Amache* at Parker Arts, Culture & Events Center. Image by MG Bernard.

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, O‘ahu, Hawaii in 1941, the United States Congress passed a law on March 29, 1942 targeting Japanese Americans due to the perception of "public danger." Within 48 hours all Japanese Americans within varied distances from the Pacific coast were forced to evacuate their homes, farms, properties, and businesses and move to “relocation centers” (i.e., internment camps) miles inland, often in remote and desolate locations. [2] One such internment camp was located in Granada, Colorado, about 140 miles east of Pueblo, Colorado, and nicknamed “Amache.” Amache opened on August 27, 1942, and reached its highest population of 7,318 inhabitants in February 1943.

Three works by Sarah Fukami: (from left to right) *Prisoners of War*, *We Want Rubber*, and *No Japanese Labor*, photo plate lithography, screen printing, and laser cutting on paper mounted on lightbox. Image by MG Bernard.

At Amache, internees not only engaged in American and Japanese popular cultural activities but, as Fukami argues via her artworks, thrived by rising above the unjust circumstances and prejudices placed upon them. Despite the terrible living conditions behind barbed wire, 10,000 people of Japanese descent managed to run a silkscreen shop and a cooperative store, publish a newspaper, and successfully operate agricultural enterprises both within and outside of the camp. [3] In addition, Japanese Americans confined at Amache built infrastructure, including a hospital where medical professionals helped care for their friends and family and also a school where teachers and artists set up classes for adults and children.

Sarah Fukami, *08 (Granada) II*, 2023, acrylic and laser cutting on Plexiglas®, 18 x 24 inches. Image courtesy of the artist.

Works such as 08 (Granada) II (2023) and 24133C (Tashima Takayuki) (2023) interweave photographs by Thomas Parker (1907-1976)—taken of structures and working residents at Amache from 1942 to 1944—with laser cut patterns on Plexiglas® and gold acrylic paint. Fukami has repaired the missing sections of the photographs with gold to reference the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery called kintsugi or “the art of repair,” which relates to the traditional Japanese lacquer decoration technique maki-e. [4] The result gives viewers a blurred but loving and dignified glimpse into the past of those who were unjustly forced to live and work under imprisoned supervision.

Sarah Fukami, *24133C (Tashima Takayuki)*, 2023, acrylic and laser cutting on Plexiglas®, 28 x 24 inches. Image courtesy of the artist.

As Fukami explains, “my intention [is] that viewers spend time with these people and histories in order to learn from them and, hopefully, never let such atrocities occur again.” [5] By acknowledging traditional Japanese art forms while simultaneously mending the photographs with gold, the artist literally illuminates and highlights the damaged Japanese American historical lineages in the United States.

Sarah Fukami, *03773D (Fukuda Kay) IV*, 2017, photo plate lithography, screen printing, and laser cutting on paper, 18 x 24 inches. Image courtesy of the artist.

Other works in the exhibition remember and honor specific individuals. 03773D (Fukuda Kay) IV (2017), for example, features a photograph of U.S. Naval Cadet Nurse Kay Fukuda taken by Ansel Adams (1902-1984) in 1943. [6] The photo plate lithograph—like Fukami’s other works—is abstracted by screen-printed patterns inspired by Japanese textiles and woodblocks, as well as laser cut numbers that hold very specific meaning in the artist’s work. Each Japanese American unethically interned in camps in Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming was assigned a number by the War Relocation Authority (WRA) as a form of record keeping and person tracking.

Sarah Fukami, *09061D (Hirata Yuichi)*, acrylic and laser cutting on Plexiglas®. Image courtesy of the artist.

According to Fukami, when the artist looked up her last name in the WRA database to find entries recorded about her family members interned during WWII, she could only find “letters and numbers representing data relevant to the WRA.” [7] None of the recorded information answered questions regarding the humanity of Japanese Americans such as, “Was the person born in the U.S.? Were they educated in Japan? How long have they lived in the U.S.? Where did they live before they were relocated?” In effect, the numbers assigned to each person essentially objectified them by reducing them to a number rather than a complex human.

Sarah Fukami, *01 (Manzanar) II*, 2023, acrylic and laser cutting on paper, 13 x 36 inches. Image courtesy of the artist.

The entire exhibition is a dedication—a form of love letter—to her great grandfather Kiyoshi, who after living in Kent, Washington for thirty-five years “was taken by the FBI from his farm and sent to a Prisoner of War Camp in Lordsburg, New Mexico” from 1942 to 1944. [8] For example, 01 (Manzanar) II (2023) features an image of the Japanese American concentration camp in Manzanar, California overlayed with her grandfather’s handwriting taken from letters he wrote while interned in New Mexico.

Sarah Fukami, *Wakeme (Partition)*, acrylic, screen printing, and laser cutting on Plexiglas®, 27 x 72 inches. Image courtesy of the artist.

What’s more, Fukami titles her artist statement as “Sagebrush Country,” a nod to the way her great grandfather described his experience of living in New Mexico in his letters. [9] “He would often mention the heat, the dust, and the lonely endless plains. There was nothing but sagebrush for miles,” says Fukami. [10] While sagebrush was a marker of harsh, dry landscape for Kiyoshi—especially in comparison to Washington’s lush, wet environment— for the artist, “the humble sagebrush,” like the Japanese American community, symbolizes great strength, tenacity, and the ability to flourish even in the most oppressive atmospheres.

Sarah Fukami, *01 (Manzanar)*, 2023, acrylic and laser cutting on Plexiglas®, 60 x 72 x 98 inches. Image by MG Bernard.

Fukami’s works celebrate her family’s resilience and the ability of the Japanese American community to endure. Like the sagebrush, the Japanese American legacy is one that deserves the utmost respect and recognition, and it is Fukami’s goal to remember it, honor it, uplift it, and memorialize it.

Mary Grace Bernard (MG, she/her) is a transmedia and performance artist, educator, advocate, and crip witch. Her practice finds itself at the intersection of performance art, transmedia installation art, art scholarship, art writing, curation, and activism.

[1] Sarah Fukami, “About/Contact,” Sarah Fukami, https://www.sarahfukami.com/about-contact, accessed 9/23/23.

[2] National Archives and Records Administration, “Japanese-American Incarceration During World War II,” Archives, https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/japanese-relocation#background, accessed 9/23/23.

[3] Amache Preservation Society, “Historical Summary,” Amache, https://amache.org/historical-summary/, accessed 9/23/23.

[4] Fukami, email message to the author, September 23, 2023.

[5] Fukami, “Sagebrush Country,” Reflections on Amache, September 14-November 12, 2023.

[6] More than 350 Japanese American women served in the cadet corps, including Kay Fukuda. As historian Susan L. Smith explains, more than 100 Japanese nurses were interned in camps during WWII and then “relied on and exploited.” Joanna Seltzer, “Kay Fukuda & Aiko Humaguchi: Japanese American Nurses,” Nurses You Should Know, May 7, 2021, https://medium.com/nurses-you-should-know/kay-fukuda-aiko-humaguchi-cecb4019ad5e, accessed 9/23/23.

[7] Fukami, email message to the author, September 23, 2023.

[8] Fukami, “Sagebrush Country.”

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid.