Mapping the Unseen
An Interrogation of a Landscape
Mapping the Unseen was a temporary, site-specific installation presented in the fall of 2022 at the marker of the former Japanese prison camp that was located in Santa Fe, NM during the period of WWII.
The installation was conceived as a counter-monument, a work that tacitly critiques the original monument. MTU was installed for only 2 hours at dusk. Passers by stopped to discuss the history and some had fragments of information and insughts that elaborated on the history.
The subtitle is “interrogation of a landscape” as a means to describe the mechanism by which much of the true historical reckoning for the “camp” covered over and re-modeled by a private, gated housing development that now covers the location and the ambiguity of geography created by the overlay of a dog park. A plaque on the marker (a large stone) instructs visitors to stand at a specific spot and “look east” to see the former location of the prison camp. The “marker” (not referred to as a “monument”) is situated within the grounds of a popular dog park.
Looking in the direction suggested by the plaque on the marker presents a serene, pastoral impression that in some ways makes it more haunting in that it contrasts so vividly with the reality of the prison camp and belies the experiences of suffering and injustice that occurred here.
At the same time, it is a place for families, descendents and friends of those who were imprisoned here to reflect and grieve in a quiet, emotionally modulated way. The marker area is separated from the view of the former camp site by a private gravel road.
The concept of MTU was to symbolically restore the obscured view. It developed directly out of the experience of trying to imagine the structures as they existed in the past. The site is filled with contradictions and equivocation. The installation was designed as a way to remove the veneer of equivocation.
Various images are available of parts of the camp, although limited. They were taken by people who worked there and have been preserved by their family members. But the most pertinent image for this project seemed to be the aerial photograph that was taken after the camp was closed, but before the structures had been demolished. It is an image of ghost town. Using a variety of images would have seemed to dilute and obscure the experience in much the same way the new houses obscure the real narrative embedded in the land.
