Joan Takayama-Ogawa: Ceramic Beacon

20
zaiden
(LEFT, FIG. 5)
Racial Profiling:
Japanese American Relocation Camps
2001–2002
Glazed earthenware, wood,
metal, fiber
21
ceramic beacon
(BELOW, FIG. 6)
Tipping Point Series, SUVs (detail)
2008
Glazed earthenware
(SEE ALSO PAGE 6)
Takayama-Ogawa created one of her only mixed-media pieces
to document what her family experienced during that dark time.
A miniature wooden sarcophagus holding her grandfather’s
identification tag sits atop a black ceramic box, surrounded by
gold barbed wire. She transcribed President Ford’s “American
Promise” apology and hand wrote the names of her extended
family along with sides of the base to document their experiences
and create a modern relic (FIG. 5).
In the following years, commentary became her primary
focus and she sculpted more figuratively.
Tea and tableware remained central in her
art and she found an even stronger voice
by working on a smaller, diminutive scale.
Always attentive to detail, Takayama-Ogawa
started making vignettes with miniatures
that were loaded with social critique. In 2008,
Takayama-Ogawa started addressing the
signs of the recession’s onset, the collapse
of financial institutions, and the real estate
market crash. Lilliputian banks, oil rigs, cars,
planes, and houses became narrative symbols
in her pieces. Takayama-Ogawa flipped the
idea of a storm in a teacup with her Tipping
Point Series, seeing that something unprecedented
was taking place (FIG. 6, SEE ALSO PAGE 6).
She watched how the country tried to contain
the economic disaster.