A local printmaker is using her art to sound an alarm after hearing echoes of her family’s story in recent news. Lois Harada is a fourth-generation descendant of Japanese immigrants and a Rhode Island artist whose techniques include screen printing, silk screen printing, intaglio, and letterpress printing. In “Lois Harada: Echoes” on ART inc., Harada explains the unique way in which she uses vintage text and familiar propaganda techniques to share her family’s history of Japanese-American incarceration. The artist’s paternal grandmother’s family was forcibly removed from their home outside of San Diego to an incarceration site in Poston, Arizona during World War II.
Harada calls this work a conversation with the past. As she shared in a recent interview, “For me, it was a way to explore an area of my family’s history that wasn’t even very well known to myself. I think it’s very common in folks my generation to have a grandparent who’s a survivor of the camps to say, ‘Oh, I don’t want to talk about it. We’ve moved on. We’ve Americanized.’” The artist hopes to invite people into that history so they may recognize parallels to the current political climate and fear of immigrants. Harada does so in a deceptively colorful and playful way in the WPA-inspired silkscreen posters and custom penny press of “Wish You Were Here” 2022 collection.
The artist’s most recent collection is “221 Stones”, a collection of intaglio monoprints representing the number of reported deaths at the Poston, Arizona incarceration site where Harada’s grandmother lived from 1942-1945. Harada is a teacher at RISD, works at DWRI Letterpress, and has exhibited her work across the United States and internationally.
Lois Harada is also known by some for her controversial campaign, "#RenameVictoryDay.” As a non-native Rhode Island resident - she is originally from Salt Lake City - the artist was surprised by the celebration of Victory Day, the state holiday many locals still refer to as “V-J” (Victory over Japan) Day. “For me”, Harada said recently, “as a person who identifies as someone of Japanese descent and part of the Asian American community, it always made me feel more isolated. And in talking to other folks in the community, they had a very similar experience.”
Harada started a poster campaign in 2019 to encourage people to rethink the naming of the holiday. While the artist says the effort to change legislation has largely stalled, she asserts that the name “Peace and Remembrance Day” would include everyone and better honor veterans with remembrance while also recognizing the peace that resulted from their efforts.
