Reassembled Memories
Exhibition: July 9 – September 6, 2025
Opening Reception: Saturday, July 12, 1pm-3pm | Learn more…
Gallery Hours: Wednesday-Saturday, 10am-4pm
The galleries will be closed on Saturday, August 30 for Labor Day weekend.
Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Avenue, Richmond, CA 94804
Reassembled Memories features a series of works made by Jeanie Kashima that weave together fragments of history through collage and family photography. Her family, of Japanese ancestry, were forced from their home in Berkeley during World War II and initially housed in horse stalls at Tanforan Race Track (now known as Tanforan Memorial). They were later relocated to the Topaz Concentration Camp in Delta, Utah, where Kashima became the first baby born in the camp. Her collages serve as both a remembrance of these disrupted beginnings as well as a quiet act of preservation piecing together stories shaped by lived experiences through displacement, loss, and resilience.
About the Artist: Eugenia “Jeanie” Kashima is a mixed-media artist whose work reflects her personal history and the Japanese American experience during World War II. Born in the Topaz (Central Utah) Concentration Camp on September 22, 1942, Kashima revisits her birth and her family’s forced relocation through powerful collage work. In the early 20th century, Kashima’s family lived in Berkeley, where her grandfather, Seizo Oishi, owned a carnation nursery in Richmond, CA. During World War II, they were forcibly removed from their home and sent to the Tanforan Assembly Center before being relocated to Topaz. In 2020, while in quarantine, Kashima discovered family photographs taken by her uncles, who served in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. These two-by-three-inch images were enlarged and incorporated into her collages, blending historical documentation with artistic interpretation to explore life in Topaz and her return to the site in 2022. Kashima’s work has been shown at the Visions Museum of Textile Art in San Diego and the National Japanese American Historical Society Peace Gallery in San Francisco.
Top Image: Eugenia and Glenn, 2020
