10. Freedom from Fear/Yellow Bowl Project

Photograph by Setsuko Winchester

A new exhibition at FDR Four Freedoms Park on Roosevelt Island directly challenges Franklin D. Roosevelt’s legacy. The Freedom from Fear/Yellow Bowl Project ceramic artist and journalist Setsuko Winchester examines the racial and cultural stereotypes of WWII, and the relocation and imprisonment of Japanese Americans following FDR’s Executive Order 9066 in 1942. Each of the 120 yellow tea bowls that make up the installation represent 1,000 of the 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry who were incarcerated in ten U.S. concentration camps across the country. The project asks “whose fear?” and “whose freedoms?” get protected in times of war and beyond. The bowls have travelled the country with Winchester as she photographed them at the site of every former camp.

The installation will be onsite and free and open to the public from Friday, April 12th through Sunday, April 14th at the Louis Kahn-designed park. The artist will give a free, public talk and tour of her installation on Sunday, April 14 at 2pm.