For the Japanese American community of the San Francisco Bay Area - one of the largest and most established on the West Coast - families were given only days to dispose of homes, businesses, and possessions before being forced onto buses for the Tanforan Assembly Center following the attach on Pearl Harbor and the start of war with Japan.
Starting in September 1942, most of the incarcerated citizens at Tanforan were transported by train to the Central Utah Relocation Center – more popularly known as Topaz – located at a dusty site in the Great Basin of central Utah. Packed by the War Relocation Authority into crowded railcars, families and individuals spent about two nights and a day to reach Topaz, which was still under construction. Between 1942 and 1945, the Topaz War Relocation Center held more than 8,000 people, exposing its prisoners to extreme heat, dust storms, and bitter cold, while families tried to build stable lives in overcrowded tar-paper barracks with little privacy and limited resources.
Epiphanies in Ancient Sands offers quiet contemplation with photographs of what is left in the sands of the Great Basin juxtaposed with fragmented text adapted from personal narratives and poignant photographs by Dorothea Lange that set an atmosphere and emotional tone of trauma and personal identity being taken.
5 text sheets adapted from personal narratives of Japanese Americans incarcerated at Topaz WRC on Canson Rag Photographique
3 archival pigment prints by Dorothea Lange on Mylar
Summary statement, map of Topaz WRC layout, colophon and index sheet on Canson Rag Photographique
Chiyogami silkscreened paper covered book binders board with four-flap archival folder