Alissa Ohashi

My work combines performance and photography to deconstruct identity through the reconstruction and reintegration of memory, to investigate my relationship with my once-absent father, my unfamiliar Japanese heritage, and explore transgenerational trauma dating back to World War II - at time when my grandfather and his family were forced into the Tule Lake Japanese Internment Camp in Northern California. Through a variety of methods and techniques, both digital and manual, I combine, break apart, and mend these old photos of my father, and photos of myself reenacting his original photos. Additionally, I've utilized historical and ethnographic research through the Department of Justice to piece together and tell my family's story from an uncertain time in our nation's history.