Gallery Talk: American Race Laws

Join us for a gallery talk with ceramicist, photographer, artist, and journalist Setsuko Winchester titled "American Race Laws: It’s Not Just Black and White.” The presentation will explore "Yellow Bowl Project," an exhibit by Winchester on display in the Daniel Arts Center Student Gallery (on view daily through Saturday, November 23, 2019). The exhibition is presented as part of this year's Symposium on Social Justice and Inclusion (November 1, 2019 - November 8, 2019). 

During World War II, 120,000 people with 1/16 “Japanese blood” were incarcerated in US concentration camps. Two-thirds were American citizens. One third were children. No one was ever found guilty of treason or espionage. An American of Japanese ethnicity, Winchester created 120 yellow tea bowls and displayed them at the ten internment camps.

About Setsuko Winchester:

Setsuko Winchester was born in New York City and has been dabbling in clay most of her adult life. She began her professional life working in finance on Wall Street until she made a mid-life career change to journalism after hosting an English Language program on NHK (the Japanese BBC). Graduating from the Graduate School of Journalism at NYU in the early ’90s, she started out as a segment producer at WNYC in New York City and assistant producer of WNYC's "On the Media" before being recruited to NPR in Washington, DC to work on the shows "Morning Edition" and "Talk of the Nation." 

In 2006, Winchester moved to Western Massachusetts to pursue a life-long interest in ceramics and the visual arts. Together with her writer husband, she embraced the rural life, learning how to make organic cider, harvest honey, and raise chickens. Winchester established a kiln and ceramics studio at their farm where she began experimenting with ceramic shapes and concepts.  

In 2012, after the death of her mother, she began looking into her own history and into the history of Japanese-Americans and Asian peoples in the United States. Her latest project is a work of conceptual art that incorporates photography, ceramics, and history.

The gallery talk is free and open to the public.