The Friends of the Japanese Garden in California State University Long Beach presents the 2011 Winter Lecture featuring Kenneth I. Helphand, author of Defiant Gardens: Making Gardens in Wartime on Friday, February 25, at 7:00 pm at Daniel Recital Hall in the CSULB campus.
Light reception and book signing to follow lecture. The Friends of the Japanese Garden members and their guests enjoy free admission to this event. Admission for non-members is $5 per person. www.csulb.edu/~jgarden
Become a Friend of the Earl Burns Miller Japanese Garden and enjoy all of the educational programs. RSVP required to (562) 985-2169.
"Set against the harshness and ugliness of war, a garden can bring both beauty and hope.” So writes Kenneth Helphand in Defiant Gardens: Making Gardens in Wartime, his book about gardens created in extreme political, economic, or cultural conditions and their impact on society.
He presents examples from WWI, Nazi Europe, and the Japanese-American internment camps to explore the universal capacity of humans to endure extreme situations and their powerful responses via the constructed landscape.
Those interested in learning more about Japanese-American history will develop a greater understanding of the context of Merritt Park, a Japanese garden built in 1943 by the internees at the Manzanar War Relocation Center, and its recent excavation by the excavation by the National Parks Service
Professor Helphand teaches landscape architecture at the University of Oregon and is a Sr. Fellow of Landscape History at Dumbarton Oaks, Harvard University.
This event is part of The B-Word Project. This project is made possible in part by a grant from the Association of Performing Arts Presenters Creative Campus Innovations Grant Program, funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.
