In the beginning stages, [insert history here] was supposed to be a project about unearthing information that has faded from popular consciousness and also a commentary on the information that we as a society decide to remember and memorialize as part of our collective memory. Inherant in this discussion are the questions of who gets to remember, what they remember, and how it is articulated.

The historical plaque is one such convention through which historical memory is realized and preserved. And yet, when I did a survey of the historical plaques in San Francisco and the information that is articulated on them, it became apparent that the types of information that I deem relevant to my own personal experience. This is not at all a judgement of the existing plaques. This information may be fascinating to a large number of other people. The project is not attempting to “rewrite” history in any way. Instead, I prefer to take the approach of augmenting history with the facts and ideas that individuals deem important.

As a prototype, I installed plaques at the Tanforan Mall in San Bruno, California. The mall was recently rebuilt from the ground up, reinventing itself as a high end shopping destination. Prior to becoming a mall, a horseracing track sat on this site. The mall’s signage recalls this history with its inclusion of a silhouetted horse. And yet, along with its history as a racetrack, this site has a darker past that is not acknowledged. In 1942, 7,800 Bay Area people of Japanese descent were imprisoned here by the U.S. government as potential saboteurs. They were forced to live in horse stables at the racetrack under primitive conditions for four to five months. Then, nearly all were taken by guarded trains to live for the duration of the war in an internment camp in the deserts of Topaz, Utah. By the time the last of the relocation camps closed on December 1, 1945, Japanese Americans lost homes and businesses estimated to be worth $4-5 billion dollars. Not included in this cost was the permanent emotional scars left on the Japanese American population. While many have knowledge that the Japanese Internment existed, few have any real knowledge of the social and political conditions in which this event happened.

To increase awareness of the mall as a site where thousands of Japanese Americans were interned, I borrowed heavily from the world of grafitti and street art, using wheat paste and paper as the materials for which to install historical plaques that contained information about this history. Plaques that commemorated these events were installed in the bathroom stalls, stuffed into various sale items, and placed price placards in J.C. Penney.

However, it was important for me, to figure out a way to extend the project beyond just myself and my own ideas. For to do that would place myself in a position of authority where I was simply substituting my own beliefs and ideas for those of mainstream history. Therefore it was important for me to include an aspect of the project that was based on the idea that everyone should speak for themselves and that the collective voices of all deserve to be heard. With that in mind, I enlisted the help of some friends to test out the idea of them installing their own historical plaques, with no guidelines as far as the kind of information the plaque should contain. Results varied widely. I hope to continue this project by launching a sticker campaign to get inspired individuals to begin posting and sharing plaques of their own.

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