Haruka Sakaguchi: The Camps America Built

Haruka Sakaguchi documents Japanese American WWII incarceration camps and the families who return to them, combining portraiture, landscape, and handwritten testimony.

Why go

Sakaguchi's project pairs intimate portraits of former incarcerees and descendants with handwritten letters—a formal device that transforms pilgrimage into testimony. The work directly engages the question of American identity as the nation marks its 250th anniversary.

What to expect

Portraits, landscape photography, personal testimony, and historical documents exploring the legacies of Japanese American incarceration during World War II. The exhibition occupies ICP's ground-floor Incubator Space and is free to visit.

Things to know

• Sakaguchi is the 2026 ICP Infinity Award honoree for Documentary Practice and Visual Journalism.
• The project documents all ten government-run concentration camps as they stand today.
• Over 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry were forcibly incarcerated after Pearl Harbor; two-thirds were U.S.-born citizens.
• Sakaguchi has also documented atomic bomb survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and directed the short film Loyal American with National Geog
• Her work has appeared in The New York Times, TIME, The New Yorker, and Smithsonian Magazine.
• She was a finalist for Pictures of the Year International in 2021.

Plan your visit

The Incubator Space is located on ICP's ground floor and is free and open to the public during café and museum hours.