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The Art of Gaman will showcase arts and crafts made by Japanese Americans in U.S. internment camps during World War II. While incarcerated, the internees tried to gaman, a Japanese word that means to bear the seemingly unbearable with dignity and patience.
Housed in tar-paper covered barracks furnished with nothing more than metal cots, the internees used scraps and found materials to create furniture, toys and games, musical instruments, pendants and pins, purses, and ornamental displays.
These objects became essential both for simple creature comforts and emotional survival.
This exhibition presents an opportunity to educate a new generation of Americans about the internment experience and will provide a historical context through archival photographs and artifacts.
The exhibition, organized by San Francisco-based author and guest curator Delphine Hirasuna, with the cooperation of the Japanese American Citizens League, will feature more than 100 objects, many of which are on loan from former internees or their families. The exhibition is based on Hirasuna's 2005 book The Art of Gaman. -- www.americanart.si.edu
Posted June 29th, 2009 by ruzik_tuzik
