Peninsula College hosts virtual exhibit of Manzanar photography

By Sequim Gazette Staff • February 27, 2021 1:30 am
Brian Goodman’s photo ”Soul Consoling Tower, Cemetery, and the Sierra Nevada” (2015), details one of the few remaining structures left after the Manzanar internment camp was dismantled, sold off and bulldozed. The obelisk monument in the camps cemetery was designed and built by incarceree stonemason Ryozo Kado and is inscribed with Japanese characters which translate to “Soul Consoling Tower.” Photo by Brian Goodman
Brian Goodman’s photo ”Soul Consoling Tower, Cemetery, and the Sierra Nevada” (2015), details one of the few remaining structures left after the Manzanar internment camp was dismantled, sold off and bulldozed. The obelisk monument in the camps cemetery was designed and built by incarceree stonemason Ryozo Kado and is inscribed with Japanese characters which translate to “Soul Consoling Tower.” Photo by Brian Goodman

The Peninsula College PUB Gallery of Art is featuring a digital exhibition on their Facebook page that includes select works from Goodman’s photographic series entitled, “Manzanar: Their Footsteps Remain — 40 Years of Photography.”

Photographer Brian Goodman will present an artist talk for Peninsula College’s Studium Generale on Thursday, March 4 at 12:30pm via Zoom. The event is free and open to the public.

Participants can join in the free presentation and discussion at us02web.zoom.us/j/82419155703.

An interview about the series and Goodman’s artistic vision can be found on the page as well as on YouTube at youtu.be/c5WXMbHPaI4.

During World War II, more than 11,000 men, women, and children of Japanese descent were forcibly removed from their homes and transported to the “Manzanar War Relocation Center,” where many spent three-and-a-half years. Manzanar was one of 10 concentration camps erected primarily in the western states within months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. About two-thirds of the more than 120,000 people held across the nation were U.S. citizens.

“In 1977, on one of my many skiing trips up to Mammoth Mountain, I discovered a rough patch of unmarked land along Highway 395 with a few odd structures on it that drew me in,” Goodman said. “I didn’t know what it was, but as I walked the dusty, desert land overgrown with brush and debris, I realized that something significant had happened there.”

Goodman added, “Today, 75 years later, in the post 9/11 world that we live in, it’s more important than ever that we look back at places like Manzanar and learn from our history.

“We must educate ourselves and teach our children to look beyond their fear, to be compassionate and tolerant.”