Enduring Objects

Drawing on the work of Japanese American designers, artists and architects, Moonscape of the Mind uncovers the hidden legacies of internment during World War Two. Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Executive Order 9066 authorized the forced removal of any suspected enemies of the state from the West Coast, including some 120,000 individuals of Japanese descent. There was, however, a bright spot in this otherwise dark chapter of US history: permission for 4,000 college-aged Japanese Americans to leave the camps and continue their education. Reflecting the shared and divergent experiences of internment, this volume spotlights those who made distinctive contributions across commercial and domestic architecture, graphic design, fine art, furniture design and activist design practices. Divided into three parts, contributors examine iconic modernist works, everyday objects and spaces, and objects of resistance. Chiura Obata’s Hatsuki Wakasa Shot by M.P. (1943), Yuri Kochiyama’s Kitchen Table (1961), Ruth Asawa’s abstract looped-wire sculptures, Minoru Yamasaki’s Japanese Cultural and Trade Center (1968) and George Nakashima’s Odakyu Cabinet (1973), among other works, are presented alongside descendant reflections, oral histories given by survivors, and a rich collection of 85 colour images. Presenting a diversity of renowned and lesser-known figures, chapters demonstrate that material and visual culture can serve as anchors of social identity and carriers of collective memory. They examine how acts of artistic self-definition intersected with issues of identity and belonging, displacement and confinement, racial exclusion and marginalization, and civic action and resistance, engaging them as part of the same worlds of post-war recovery and modern design. Weaving together object-focused and site-specific case studies with vernacular memory theory and methods, Moonscape of the Mind animates an understudied creative archive of internment and its aftermath.