Fear Kimono

Fear Kimono

2006

Size: 64”’ x 46” x 7"

Media: Magnet wire, Japanese paper dolls made of Executive Order 9066 documents, metal eyelets, silk, nylon mesh, Japanese candy wrappers, nylon fishing line, plastic sushi grass and bamboo pole.

The image of a particular cultural garment can evoke strong feelings of suspicion and fear as we know from today’s international conflicts. Fear Kimono reflects on the kimono which once cloaked the wearer in suspicion in American media and which disappeared as a common Japanese American garment after 1942.

Small kimono dolls folded of Executive order 9006 (the order for Japanese internment) suspend upside down abstractly transforming into bombs falling upon San Francisco; the shadows on the wall accentuate this dual imagery of the kimonos. The arching pattern at the top of the large wire kimono mimics a propaganda kimono from Japan that promoted the idea of the Japanese Empire spreading across all of Asia. The paper kimonos are folded right over left, in the manner that only the dead are dressed.

Selected to show in Kearny Street Workshop’s 8th annual Apature festival, an annual multidisciplinary arts festival presenting the work of emerging Asian Pacific American artists, September 19th to 30th, 2006.

Photo: George R. Young

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Corinne Okada Design - Kimonos