I am working on a project called “Innocent Dreamers”. It started with one drawing and a cot - a drawing of a young girl sleeping on a straw mattress. I created it to bring visibility to the children who were imprisoned in deplorable conditions during the Japanese American incarceration. Some were in horse stables before moving to their long-term prisons in the incarceration camps during WWII. The piece has moved people to tears, brought up memories, and a clearer understanding of what young Japanese Americans endured.

 

The Triton Museum of Art in Santa Clara has invited me to show a larger cot installation in 2019. A room of 25(+) cots will depict sleeping children who are living or did live in appalling situations.

 

My goal is to bring visibility to how our country created traumatic experiences for children of diverse ethnic, social, and economic backgrounds. I wonder how these experiences affect future generations and our country.

 

This will not only be an acknowledgment of wrongdoing but also an honoring and healing installation. Information will be provided on we can support and help these communities.

 

Installation Focus

• Stories the public needs to know

• My goal is to bring education, visibility, and empathy to these children who are/were restrained and not safely able to embrace their heritage due to racism, economic situations, war, environmental disasters, social inequities and government incompetence.

• I am focusing on situations within the US.

• Any country of origin - preferably country where many are coming here to represent a mass injustice

• Can be historical - like Japanese American incarceration, Native American boarding schools, others.

• Some situations I am researching:

  • Japanese American Incarceration Camps

  • Native American boarding schools

  • Prisons in Texas for Central American children

  • New Orleans hurricane or other natural disaster camps

  • Refugee situations

  • Detained immigrant camps

  • Slave communities

• Any gender, 2-12 years old 

• 8-10 situations: 1-3 children each

• Stories can be anonymous, without depicting the actual children

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Research

I am contacting refugee and immigrant groups in the Bay Area including the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity who has built a network of sanctuary congregations and brought attention to 250 detention centers across the country. I am working with Lawyer Allegra Love in New Mexico who represents immigrant and refugee families. Please connect me with anyone who may be willing to share stories for my project.

 

Gladly accepting funding

Materials

• 25-35 cots for the installation.

  • Could be used cots

  • Would prefer they are the same but not necessary

  • Style of cots that would be used in a refugee or prison situation

  • Researching renting or purchasing cots

• Pens

• Fabric and stuffing for illustrated mattresses

• Hiring people to sew mattress covers

• Funding to support my art making for 16 months