Southwest Chapter ConferenceSpeakers

Patrick Nagatani

Friday, October 17, 2014 @ 6:00pm, Multipurpose Room (1-030)

Keynote Speaker/Honored Educator: Patrick Nagatani

Patrick Nagatani was born in Chicago in 1945, just days after the Enola Gay bomber dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Born to Japanese-American parents-his father's family lived just outside of Hiroshima-that cataclysmic event would resonate throughout Nagatani's life and work. The theatrical nature of Nagatani's work reflects his experiences working in the Hollywood film industry in the 1970s, where he built special-effects models for science fiction films such as Bladerunner and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In Nuclear Enchantment, Nagatani deftly combines photography with built sets and Hollywood-style "special effects" to question the ways in which photography shapes our ideas about historical truth.