PORT ANGELES — Photographer Brian Goodman will talk about his work documenting the remains of Manzanar, a Japanese concentration camp used in WW II, on Thursday.
The Studium lecture at 12:30 p.m. via Zoom complements the Peninsula College PUB Gallery’s digital exhibition of his work, “Manzanar: Their Footsteps Remain — 40 Years of Photography.”
The free Studium lecture and discussion can be found at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82419155703.
The digital exhibit and an interview with Goodman are on the PUB Gallery’s Facebook page at https://tinyurl.com/PUBgallery. A presentation is also at YouTube at https://youtu.be/c5WXMbHPaI4.
Manzanar was at the foot of the majestic Sierra Nevada Mountains in California’s Owens Valley. Over 11,000 men, women, and children of Japanese descent were forcibly removed from their homes and transported to what was called the Manzanar War Relocation Center with only the possessions they could carry.
Manzanar was one of 10 concentration camps erected within months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, to round up and hold captive over 120,000 people.
About two-thirds of these individuals were U.S. citizens. During those three and a half years of incarceration, they lived behind barbed wire fences with armed U.S. soldiers keeping watch in guard towers.
Growing up in Southern California, Goodman didn’t know anything about it.
“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.”
Seventy 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,” Goodman said.
“We must educate ourselves and teach our children to look beyond their fear, to be compassionate and tolerant.”
He lives with his wife, Shira, who served as consultant, co-researcher, co-writer and editor on this project; and their black lab, Shooshi in Altadena, Calif.
Northwind Arts Center in Port Townsend exhibited Goodman’s photographs in November.
