For Freedoms: Past Present

ForFreedoms’ AAPI Solidarity campaign aimed to change hearts and minds with billboards across the country. For over a year, fueled by the racist and xenophobic framing of the coronavirus in the U.S., Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have become the target of hate crimes at the hands of their fellow citizens. While attacks have been on the rise, so have tensions around the place of Asian Americans in the context of other communities of color. As artists, our message is solidarity: to visualize mutual support and interconnected struggles with other BIPOC communities, to show the diversity and multitudes of AAPI identities, and to realize a public representation of arms linked against hate.

Terasaki’s contribution to the campaign uses two images: “PAST” shows three young boys in 1944, standing behind the barbed wire fence of Manzanar, CA, one of 10 concentration camp where Japanese-American citizens were imprisoned following the attacks on Pearl Harbor. “PRESENT” shows peaceful protestors participating in a candlelit vigil in Columbus, OH, in response to the violent gun attack against Asian female spa workers in Atlanta, GA.

“PAST-PRESENT”, highlights two fraught and tragic episodes among many in American history that exist in opposition to the norms and values of any civil society.

“PAST-PRESENT” was exhibited at 193 Ted Turner Drive, Atlanta, GA from April 14 to April 31, 2021

Photo Credits: Toyo Miyatake, “Three Boys Behind Barbed Wire,” courtesy of Toyo Miyatake Studio; Stephen Zenner/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images.