Seattle Convention Center

Steel cut metal garage door

Designed by Lauren Iida

Commissioned by Washington State Convention Center Addition
Seattle, Washington
Permanently installed April 2023

Original cut paper prototype

ARTIST STATEMENT

“This piece is a hand-cut paper tapestry of foods commonly found and enjoyed in both Japan and the Pacific Northwest of the United States. As a Japanese American biracial child, I grew up in Seattle watching my Japanese grandmother prepare these foods with meticulous care for our family. She massaged each paper-thin cucumber slice marinating in rice wine vinegar with her weathered hands, she proudly presented me with bowls of octopus legs and perfect little piles of fish roe on tiny plates which I awkwardly tried to manipulate with chopsticks in my small, inexperienced hands. 

Later, I watched with great curiosity as my father sharpened his sushi knives on a wet stone. His body rocked back and forth methodically with the sound of the blade scraping against the gritty rock and his brow furled with concentration. He demonstrated the exact correct angle for me then guided my hands as I tried passing the knife over the stone. 

I knew these foods were special, somehow sacred. Sushi night and Udon night were always anticipated with great excitement in my family. As a child I didn’t realize that this was essentially the only part of my Japanese heritage that survived the incarceration of my family members at a Japanese concentration camp at Tule Lake in northern California during World War II. 

As I grew older and began to research the Japanese concentration camps and life for Japanese immigrants (like my great-grandparents) and first generation American-born Japanese Americans (like my grandmother), their struggles and triumphs became a profound inspiration for my artwork. For this piece I want to celebrate food, the most important remnant of my Japanese heritage still carried through the generations and highlight the fact that many of the foods, flowers, and seafood we commonly enjoy in the Pacific Northwest were introduced by Japanese immigrants such as cherry blossoms, Matsutake mushrooms, and persimmons which thrive here due to the similarities in the two climates.”

—LAUREN IIDA, 2023