Kevin Miyazaki

Echo

September 7 - October 30, 2018

Echo is a new body of work that investigates family history by addressing issues of migration, memory and place. In making the work, I’m interesting in finding connections - however small or large - to my ancestry and ethnicity. My maternal great grandparents and paternal grandparents emigrated from Japan to Hawaii and Washington state, respectively.

I was born and raised in the American Midwest, often the only face of color in an overwhelmingly white suburban setting. My interest in family history stems from this upbringing, but is fueled by compelling stories of migration, personal struggles and accomplishments within my family. My great grandfather Saburo Hayashi became a pioneer in the fields of medicine, education and journalism in Hawaii - the series title, Echo, is taken from the name of the Japanese and English language newspaper he began publishing in 1897. And my father, an American citizen born in Tacoma, Washington, was incarcerated with his family in camps for Japanese Americans during World War II.

The photographs in Echo are a mix of newly created images with others from family archives, made in Hawaii, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Washington state, Ohio and Japan. The diptych format references the physical structure of a family photo album and pairs images that hold deep personal meaning, but often have unidentifiable connections. I’m interested in how family photo albums, particularly when viewed generations later, can hold both fact and mystery. They often present persons and places both known and unknown, and can be both clarifying and inconclusive.

Though the images and stories contained within this series are personal to my experience, it’s important to me that the work be seen as representative of other American tales, with elements of immigration, discrimination, forced migration - and ultimately the successes and failures that have come to define the American experience.

ABOUT THE ARTIST: Kevin J. Miyazaki is a fourth generation Japanese American born and raised in the suburban Midwest. His childhood in an overwhelming white suburb of Milwaukee created a desire later in life to examine his ethnicity and ancestral history in Hawaii, the West Coast and Japan. Stories from his own family infuse his artwork, along with larger common themes of immigration, forced migration, social and economic mobility. Of particular interest is the incarceration of his father’s family and 120,000 other Japanese Americans by the U.S. Government during World War ll.

Miyazaki’s work has been exhibited at venues including the Griffin Museum of Photography, The Haggerty Museum of Art, Center for Photography at Woodstock and the The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. He is an adjunct faculty member at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design and works as a freelance editorial photographer whose clients include The New York Times, Architectural Digest, Food Network Magazine, AARP and Smithsonian.

Kevin Miyazaki's exhibition at Workspace Gallery is part of the For Freedoms 50 State Initiative that encourages civic engagement, discourse, and direct action. For Freedoms is a platform for greater participation in the arts and in civil society. It produces exhibitions, installations, public programs, and billboard campaigns to advocate for inclusive civic participation. Inspired by American artist Norman Rockwell’s paintings of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms (1941)—freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear— For Freedoms Federation uses art to encourage and deepen public explorations of freedom in the 21st century. Founded by Hank Willis Thomas and Eric Gottesman, For Freedoms Federation encourages new forms of critical discourse. Our mission is to use art as a vehicle to build greater participation in American Democracy. http://www.kevinmiyazaki.com/