Fhelsing's Fotothing

Garden of Remembrance at San Francisco State University --- #2 of 6
San Francisco, California
Designed and created by Ruth Asawa, Isao Ogura, and Shigeru Namba.

Ruth Asawa is a California artist whose work I admire a great deal, and during the past few months I've been visiting her public artworks that are on display in the San Francisco area. In this particular piece, she worked closely with two garden designers.

The Garden of Remembrance is a memorial to the Japanese immigrants and Japanese-American citizens who were interned in camps during World War II.

At the time the order was issued, Ruth Asawa was a high school student and she was interned in a camp in Arkansas along with her mother and siblings. Her father was interned elsewhere.

In the lawn area, there are ten large boulders that represent the ten internment camps. Memorial benches ring the lawn, including one that Ruth Asawa dedicated to the memory of her parents, who were immigrants from Japan. (The artist herself was born in California, and therefore is a U.S. citizen.)