is an emotional portrayal of the concentration camp in Minidoka used to incarcerate over 13,000 of the 120,000 Japanese Americans imprisoned during WW II. Through large-scale photographs printed on vellum, two sculptural pieces and a video installation, multi-media artist Tama Takahashi revisits her family’s personal experience in camp. Her father’s family was forced from Seattle to Minidoka, located in the isolated, wind-whipped eastern side of Idaho. 

The Minidoka National Historic Site is one of the best preserved of the 10 concentration camps located in remote areas of 10 states. Takahashi brings to the gallery evocative images of the guard tower, the fire station, the barracks and barbed wire; a mobile of the propaganda used to fuel anti-Japanese American racism, a video installation on the persistent wind that blew dust through the shoddily built buildings; and a sparkling Memory Tree standing in tribute to former prisoners and their descendants. Visitors to the show will be able to leave messages of peace through an interactive “ema” display.

Speakers, short films on the history of Minidoka and the camps, and a craft session appropriate for children are in the planning process.

Tama Takahashi majored in Art (double major in film) at UCSD and after graduation worked for almost 20 years as a camera assistant in movies and TV in Los Angeles. She opened her art studio in Santa Barbara in 2023 and was awarded an Emerging Artist Fellowship from the California Arts Council and SVCREATES. The same year, she was curated into a show at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, winning both an “Award of Excellence” and the "Gold Award" (the highest honor). She repeated these wins at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum in 2024 and 2024. Takahashi has also shown internationally at the Nagasaki Prefectural Art Museum,  in "Art Woman 2025" in Lecce, Italy, and in “Circle 2025” at the CICA Museum in South Korea. She is included in the Asian Art Contemporary’s listing of international Asian artists. Her next solo show in Gallery 825 in Los Angeles will be of her modern renditions of traditional Japanese 24-karat gold screens.

Her main goal is to increase the visibility of Asian American artists after growing up in an environment (including college) where art was centered on European and American art, to the exclusion of other rich traditions. She hopes that young people of color can study art today and see themselves as both the subject of and as the creators of contemporary art.