Mark Baugh-Sasaki
Artist Statement
I explore and investigate the human world through the lens of landscape and the environment. These concepts are human constructions, both deliberate and ones of happenstance. In questioning these constructs I begin to explore not only the physical landscape and its materials but also the metaphorical content we embed within. My work strives to make the viewer more aware that our perception of our world is a cultural product made up of geologic strata, as well as layers of socio-political histories. My hope is that by understanding our surroundings we will better understand ourselves.
While at Headlands
While at Headlands I will be working at the site of the Tule Lake Segregation Center—where my father and his family were imprisoned during World War II for being Japanese—as well as other related sites. I will address this nuanced and complicated relationship through family history, research, and personal experience. I am using the visual language of the Japanese incarceration, its landscapes, and its embedded histories to delve into the historical and psychological strata that form our sense of place and make up the human experience.
