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  • 2017-03-06 (xsd:date)
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  • Signs Designate Lots Reserved for Future Internment Camps? (en)
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  • In early March 2017, photographs of Lot reserved for Future Internment Camp signs captured at various construction sites began circulating on social media, usually without context or background: The signs bore a QR code, what looked to be the Presidential seal, the White House logo, and text reading as follows: The Executive Order referenced on the sign (9066) was one signed not by President Donald Trump, but by Franklin Delano Roosevelt on 19 February 1942, an order that paved the way for the mandatory relocation of Japanese-Americans away from America's Pacific coast during World War II. According to the Detroit Metro Times, the most widely-shared photograph of the sign depicted one that appeared in that city on 3 March 2017 and was the work of Los Angeles-based artist Plastic Jesus: Although the future internment camp photographs were genuine, what they pictured was not an actual government-produced or government-posted sign. However, as noted in one caption in a Dropbox gallery of those photographs, what the sign represents may not be so improbable: We contacted Plastic Jesus to ask about the concept behind the future internment camp signs, who explained that the idea of the sign installations was to 'jar' people into examining what is happening in this country and that this idea of internment camps may not be far fetched. The artist opined that art ought to prompt thought rather than simply provide aesthetic value. Attempts to scan the QR code on the sign lead to Plastic Jesus' web site, which shared via Twitter additional versions of the sign photographed at ten different sites: (en)
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