Object of the Week: Minidoka Series #2: Exodus

Object of the Week went live yesterday on Facebook and Instagram from the SAM fifth floor hallway where Jeffrey Carlson, SAM Collections Coordinator, discussed Roger Shimomura’s Minidoka Series #2: Exodus.

Watch this video to learn more about how Shimomura processed the era of Japanese internment in America and his identity as a Japanese American by combining Japanese and American pictorial styles. A mash up of American Pop, cartoon imagery, and traditional Japanese woodblock print, the aesthetic is a blend of these two cultural worlds. Shared between these styles are the flat, broad areas of color and the strong black outlines around the figures.

Have you ever been forced to pick up your life and move it? Have you had the experience of being displaced? Everyone’s experience is different and Shimomura offers a place of entry into his experience through the emotional responses of the figures in the painting. We cannot change the past but, as Shimomura reminds us, it’s not about changing the past, or forgetting; it’s about remembering and moving forward.

– Jeffrey Carlson, SAM Collections Coordinator