Hisako Hibi, Floating Clouds, 1944, oil on canvas, SAAM
Beauty Beyond the Barbwire explores the work of select Japanese-American Artists incarcerated by the US government during WWII (1942-1945) and their descendants. On Saturday, June 22, 2024, the Raymond Farm Center hosted a series of short presentations by authors, artists, and scholars on those effected by incarceration and then went on to make significant contributions to American art and design in the 20th and 21st Centuries. Following the presentations, there was a panel discussion about the experience of that time, the forbearance of these remarkable people, and a reflection on the the ongoing struggle for social justice, civil rights, and the fight against racial discrimination, and violence towards the Asian community in contemporary America.
In partnership with our friends at George Nakashima Woodworkers and Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project.
Schedule
Day 1 : Beauty Beyond the Barbwire Symposium
9:00 am- 5pm
Light breakfast, lunch, and a reception catered by Yudai Kanayama, owner of highly-acclaimed New York restaurants The Izakaya on 6th, The Izakaya on 4th, The Izakaya, DINER by the Izakaya x Nowadays and Dr Clark.
Presenters and Panelists
John DeFazio AIA, Raymond Farm Center Executive Director, Host
Mira Nakashima, Director of Nakashima Woodworkers
Naomi Ostwald Kawamura, Densho Executive Director
Greg Robinson, Educator/Author, Université du Québec À Montréal
Kayo Denda, Educator/Librarian Women’s Studies, Rutgers University
Amy Lee Tai & Liana, Tai, Author and Artist
Tom Wolf, Educator/Author, Bard College,
Brian Niiya, Denso, Panel Discussion Facilitator
Japanese-Fusion Buffet Style Dinner after Symposium at 7:00 pm
Japanese-fusion, multi-course meal catered by Yudai Kanayama, owner of highly-acclaimed New York restaurants The Izakaya on 6th, The Izakaya on 4th, The Izakaya, DINER by the Izakaya x Nowadays and Dr Clark.
Day 2 : Historic Tours of the Raymond Farm Center and Nakashima Woodworkers
10:00 am- 3:30pm
Lunch at the Raymond Farm Center.
Explore the life and legacies of Antonin and Noémi Raymond and George Nakashima on a joint tour of the Raymond Farm Center for Living Arts and Design and the Nakashima Woodworkers.
2 0 2 4 S P E A K E R S
JOHN DeFAZIO, AIA
Beauty Beyond the Barbwire, an Introduction to the Symposium
John DeFazio is the executive director, and Charlotte Raymond is the co-director of the Raymond Farm Center. He is an architect, teacher, lecturer, and writer. Born in Brooklyn, John lives and practices architecture and planning in New York City. He is a New York Institute of Technology graduate where he teaches architectural Thesis studio. Professor DeFazio also teaches thesis in the study-abroad program (Japan, Netherlands, Barcelona) and architectural theories at Westphal College, Architecture, Interiors, and Urban Design, Drexel University, Philadelphia. He is a writer on art, architecture, and planning and has contributed to Art in America and Residential Design Magazine.
MIRA NAKASHIMA
George Nakashima and the Nakashima Woodworkers
Mira Nakashima-Yarnell is an architect and furniture maker. Mira Nakashima is the daughter of Japanese-American woodworker and architect George Nakashima, and since 2004 has been President and Creative Director of George Nakashima Woodworkers, who produce one-of-a-kind, hand-crafted, made-to-order furniture at their workshop in New Hope, Pennsylvania. Mira was born in 1942 in Seattle, Washington, graduated cum laude from Harvard University with an undergraduate degree in Architectural Sciences and General Studies, and earned her master’s degree in Architecture from Waseda University in Tokyo.
NAOMI OSTWALD KAWAMURA
Densho and its Mission
Naomi Ostwald Kawamura is the Executive Director of Denso. Ms Kawamura was previously Executive Director of the Nikkei Place Foundation, a Japanese Canadian community-based organization in British Columbia, Canada. Ostwald Kawamura previously worked as the Director of Education at the San Diego History Center and currently serves as the Board President of the Washington D.C.-based Museum Education She holds a Master’s degree in Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
GREG ROBINSON
Legacy of Japanese American Artists
Greg Robinson is Professor of History at l'Université du Québec À Montréal. A specialist in U.S. Political History, he has written several notable books, including By Order of the President: (Harvard UP, 2001) which uncovers Franklin Roosevelt’s central involvement in Japanese American confinement, and A Tragedy of Democracy: (Columbia UP, 2009), winner of the 2009 AAAS History book prize, which studies Japanese American and Japanese Canadian confinement in transnational context. His book After Camp: (UC Press, 2012), winner of the Caroline Bancroft History Prize, centers on post war resettlement. His most recent book is The Unsung Great (U Washington Press 2020) an alternative history of Japanese Americans.
AMY LEE TAI and LIANA TAI
Multiple Perspectives Through Art: The Granddaughter and Great-granddaughter of Matsusaburo and Hisako Hibi
Amy Lee-Tai is the maternal granddaughter of artists Matsusaburo and Hisako Hibi. She is the author of the bilingual picture book A Place Where Sunflowers Grow (illustrated by Felicia Hoshino), inspired by her family’s experiences living in Japanese American incarceration camps. She lives in Charlottesville, VA, where she works as an elementary school Reading Specialist. Wherever she goes and whatever she does, Amy loves connecting to others by listening to, learning from, and sharing stories.
Liana Tai is the maternal great-granddaughter of artists Matsusaburo and Hisako Hibi. She is a recent BFA graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts, majoring in craft/material studies with a concentration in clay. Through her art and writing she dissects her queer, Asian American diaspora to her home countries, as well as her connections to her ancestors. Currently she is selling her production art at local markets. She lives in Richmond, VA with her best friend and his two kitties.
KAYO DENDA
Seabrook Farms Community, New Jersey
Kayo Denda is the Librarian for Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Rutgers University Libraries, working with the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Department and the institutes and centers at Rutgers dedicated to examining women’s issues locally and globally. She led the team of activists and librarians that created the Center for Women’s Global Leadership Poster Collection, which won the 2012 ACRL WGSS Significant Achievement Award.
Born in Japan, brought up in Brazil, and a resident of the U.S. since 1979, Kayo has an excellent interest in immigration experiences, movements of people, and subjectivities. Before coming to Rutgers Libraries in 2000, she worked at the Institute for Advanced Study, Historical Studies - Social Science Library in Princeton, New Jersey.
TOM WOLF
Neil Fujita, Graphic Designer
Tom Wolf is a Professor of Art History at Bard College, Annandale-on Hudson, NY, specializing in 20th Century Art. Curator and author for Konrad Cramer: A Retrospective (1982); Yasuo Kuniyoshi: Painter/Photographer (1986); Woodstock’s Art Heritage (1987); Yasuo Kuniyoshi’s Women (1993) Byrdcliffe: An American Arts and Crafts Colony (2003), Carl Eric Lindin, from Sweden to Woodstock (2004), The Maverick Art Colony (2006), and Peggy Bacon: Cats and Caricatures (2011), among others. In progress: The Artistic Journey of Yasuo Kuniysohi, for the Smithsonian American Art Museum (2015). Recipient, Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship, Winterthur Museum and Library Fellowships.
BRIAN NIIYA
Densho, Panel Discussion Facilitator
Brian Niiya is a Sansei born and raised in Southern California to Nisei parents who were born and raised in Hawai’i. His maternal grandfather was one of the small number of Japanese Americans from Hawai’i who were interned, and his mother’s family went to Japan on an exchange ship during the war. Brian is a graduate of Harvey Mudd College and holds an M.A. in Asian American Studies from UCLA. His professional life has been dedicated to Japanese American public history and information management, having held various positions with the UCLA Asian American Studies Center, the Japanese American National Museum, and the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai’i that have involved managing collections, curating exhibitions, developing public programs, and producing videos, books, and websites. He has published many articles on Japanese American history in a variety of academic and mainstream publications and is the editor of the online Densho Encyclopedia, which draws on his prior Encyclopedia of Japanese American History, published in 1993 with a second edition in 2000.
This symposium is made possible thanks to a generous grant by Visit Bucks County.