Camouflage Net Project (series)
The Camouflage Net Project began in 2017 as a contemporary response to the Muslim Ban and an archival response to Dorothea Lange’s documentation of incarcerated Japanese Americans weaving thousands of camouflage nets for the US Army as prison labor. Gazing at my community elders as young adults, weaving strips of hemp into enormous nets opened my mind to a "camp labor" that was not just the logistics of camp but a possibility of tangible production of objects.
Weaving the materiality of kimono fabric, I send pride of heritage back to my incarcerated community and work to heal the generational trauma we have inherited. I began incorporating children's fabric as I saw history repeat itself again with family incarceration and separation at the US southern border. As the military technology of camouflage protects people and objects through visual blending, I reread this application as an anti-xenophobia filter through which we see all people as interconnected and interdependent with each other and the universe.