JAPANESE AMERICAN NATIONAL MUSEUM ANNOUNCES FIRST VENUES FOR EATON COLLECTION DISPLAY

Los Angeles, CA—The Japanese American National Museum will bring its pop-up display of the Allen Hendershott Eaton Collection, which was saved from the auction block in 2015 through the efforts of Japanese American community leaders and activists, to five venues during June and July. These venues are the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California (JCCCNC), the Tule Lake Pilgrimage, the Minidoka Pilgrimage, the Japanese American Museum of San Jose, and the Heart Mountain Pilgrimage. Viewing access, hours, and costs will vary by venue. Workshops to help facilitate the collection of information about the artifacts will accompany the display.

Following are dates for the display at each venue:

Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California
1840 Sutter Street, San Francisco
June 23–24, 2018
Open to the public; free.
Website: jcccnc.org

Tule Lake Pilgrimage 2018: Preserving Our Hallowed Ground
Union Peak Lounge, Oregon Institute of Technology
3201 Campus Drive, Klamath Falls, Oregon
June 29 – July 1, 2018
Viewing restricted to pilgrimage participants only.
Website: tulelake.org/pilgrimage

2018 Minidoka Pilgrimage
College of Southern Idaho, Fine Arts Building
Falls Avenue, Twin Falls, Idaho
July 6, 2018
Viewing restricted to pilgrimage participants only.
Website: minidokapilgrimage.org

Japanese American Museum of San Jose
535 N. Fifth Street, San Jose, California
July 12–15, 2018
Open to the public; included with museum admission.
Website: jamsj.org

2018 Heart Mountain Pilgrimage
Holiday Inn
1701 Sheridan Ave., Cody, Wyoming
Heart Mountain Interpretive Center
1539 Road 19, Powell, Wyoming
July 27–28
Viewing restricted to pilgrimage participants.
Website: heartmountain.org/pilgrimage.html

Additional venues are being confirmed and will be announced later.

While conducting research for a book about art and craft objects created by Japanese Americans during World War II, author Allen Hendershott Eaton amassed a significant collection of such camp artifacts. After many years of being in storage and forgotten, the collection was inherited by a family friend of Eaton’s, who in April 2015 decided to put the artifacts up for auction. Japanese American activists and community leaders rallied successfully to stop the sale and ultimately the collection was transferred to JANM.

Titled Contested Histories: Art and Artifacts from the Allen Hendershott Eaton Collection, the display includes physical or digital representation of every item in the collection—more than 400 individual photographs, sculptures, paintings and watercolors, jewelry items, vases, beads, nameplates, and other handmade items from the WWII incarceration camps that Japanese Americans were forced to endure.

In addition to providing the opportunity to see a collection that inspired strong emotions and decisive actions within the Japanese American community, Contested Histories is intended to help gather information about each individual object so that the museum’s efforts to preserve and catalog the collection can be as complete as possible. Camp survivors and their family members and friends will be encouraged to share with JANM information they know or remember about the objects, including who is depicted in the many photographs, most of which were shot by photographers working for the War Relocation Authority.

Support for the conservation and display of the Eaton Collection was provided by the National Park Service’s Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program. Additional support was provided by George and Brad Takei, the Earle K. and Katherine F. (Muto) Moore Foundation, and Richard Sakai.

For more details about Contested Histories and its travel itinerary, visit janm.org/contested-histories.

NOW ON VIEW AT JANM:

What We Carried: Memories & Fragments from Iraq & Syria
Through August 5, 2018
This exhibition of photographs by Jim Lommasson captures cherished personal objects brought to the United States by Iraqi and Syrian refugees who successfully resettled here. Bearing handwritten notes by their owners that explain what the objects mean to them, these moving, intimate images are a testimony to the common threads that bind all of humanity: love for family, friendship, and the places people call home.

hapa.me – 15 years of the hapa project
Through October 28, 2018
Artist Kip Fulbeck continues his project, begun in 2001, of photographing persons who identify as “hapa”—of mixed Asian/Pacific Islander descent—as a means of promoting awareness and positive acceptance of multiracial identity. As a follow-up to kip fulbeck: part asian, 100% hapa, his groundbreaking 2006 exhibition, hapa.me pairs the photographs and statements from that exhibition with contemporary portraits of the same individuals and newly written statements, showing not only their physical changes in the ensuing years, but also changes in their perspectives and outlooks on the world. In addition, hapa.me includes portraits of hundreds of new participants and an interactive section where, on select days, viewers can join the community by having their portrait taken and writing their own personal statement.

Common Ground: The Heart of Community
Ongoing
Incorporating hundreds of objects, documents, and photographs collected by JANM, this exhibition chronicles 130 years of Japanese American history, from the early days of the Issei pioneers through the World War II incarceration to the present.

About the Japanese American National Museum (JANM)

Established in 1985, the Japanese American National Museum promotes understanding and appreciation of America’s ethnic and cultural diversity by sharing the Japanese American experience. Located in the historic Little Tokyo district of downtown Los Angeles, JANM is a hybrid institution that straddles traditional museum categories and strives to provide a voice for Japanese Americans as well as a forum that enables all people to explore their own heritage and culture. Since opening to the public, JANM has presented over 80 exhibitions onsite and traveled 20 of its exhibitions to locations around the world, including the Smithsonian Institution and the Ellis Island Museum in the United States, and several leading cultural museums in Japan and South America.

JANM is located at 100 N. Central Ave., Los Angeles. Museum hours are Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Thursday from noon to 8 p.m. General admission is $12 adults, $6 students and seniors, free for members and children under age five. Admission is free to everyone on Thursdays from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. and every third Thursday of the month from noon to 8 p.m. General admission prices and free admission times may not apply to specially ticketed exhibitions. Closed Monday, 4th of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day. For more information visit janm.org or call 213.625.0414.