Teardrops That Wound: The Absurdity of War

In this thoughtful, moving exhibition, curator SuJ’n Chon weaves together the work of Asian Pacific American artists who deconstruct and transform the imagery of war, revealing its inanity and deflating its destructive weight. Portland-based artist Yukiyo Kawano creates a life-sized replica of “Little Boy,” the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, using delicate kimono silk and strands of her own hair. Phong and Sarah Nguyen’s multi-media installation “Break Into Blossom” explores an alternate history in which “Little Boy” fell harmlessly to earth instead of launching the nuclear age. Patrick Nagatani’s intensely staged photographs reveal unseen layers of the American West’s atomic legacy. Active-duty staff sergeant Thomas Dang’s “Bombs Away” conflates the ugliness of biological weapons with the strange beauty of pathogenic organisms, held within transparent bomb/tear-shaped vessels, suspended over a mirrored floor. Noa Batle re-imagines plastic green toy soldiers as private citizens in his series, “Domestic Soldiers.”

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website