The Japanese American National Museum (JANM) will bring three innovative exhibitions to the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa as part of a one-day pop-up exhibition in connection with that evening’s performance of “Defining Courage” on Wednesday, June 7.
The pop-up exhibition will be free and open to the public from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The pop-up will include:
• “The Interactive StoryFile of Lawson Iichiro Sakai,”in which visitors converse with World War II combat veteran Lawson Iichiro Sakai (1924–2020) through AI technology. Sakai, who served in the U.S. Army’s decorated 442nd Regimental Combat Team, received four Purple Heart medals and a Bronze Star. Sakai’s oral history was preserved using StoryFile technology, and he answered more than 1,000 questions over five days of filming with 27 different cameras.
• “A Life in Pieces: The Diary and Letters of Stanley Hayami,”an interactive, 360-degree video that brings to life the diary, artwork, and letters of a Los Angeles Japanese American teenager in the early 1940s whose family was imprisoned by the U.S. government during World War II.
• “Contested Histories: Art and Artifacts from the Allen Hendershott Eaton Collection,” a selection of arts and crafts handmade by Japanese Americans who were incarcerated in America’s concentration camps.
The pop-up exhibition is sponsored by The Picerne Family Foundation.
“Defining Courage”is a unique live performance created by Emmy Award-winning filmmakers Jeff MacIntyre and ABC7-Los Angeles news anchor David Ono that combines live storytelling, new and historical film footage, live music, a choir, and eyewitness interviews to tell the story of the Nisei soldiers of World War II. JANM is proud to partner with Story Boldly to tour “Defining Courage.”
The June 7 performance is co-presented by ABC7, Disney, JANM, Segerstrom Center for the Arts, Outside In Theatre, and Story Boldly. More information and updates can be found at http://DefiningCourageShow.com.