Join us for a Community Day focused on our special exhibition, Resilience—A Sansei Sense of Legacy. This show highlights artwork by eight Sansei (third-generation Japanese American) artists exploring the lasting effects of Executive Order 9066, which authorized the forced imprisonment of Japanese Americans during World War II. We invite the community to visit the exhibition…
Sociolinguist Noriko Sugimori has often worked with her students to collect oral histories from Japanese-speaking World War II survivors in Japan, South Korea, and the United States. Their testimonies reveal personal experiences that have often remained untold and show how the past continues to shape the present. Drawing on video excerpts from these interviews, Dr.…
George Takei recounts his childhood imprisonment in Japanese American internment camps during World War II in this richly illustrated graphic novel. The memoir explores resilience and patriotism while connecting past injustices to discrimination. Blending history with storytelling, the book urges readers to challenge prejudice in America. Themes in this discussion will tie into the exhibition…
Jimmy Mirikitani (1920-2012) was a Japanese American artist who survived the trauma of WWII incarceration, the loss of family and friends in his ancestral city of Hiroshima, a harsh life on the streets of New York, and the chaos of 9/11—all by making art. Sitting alone on a windy corner in Soho, he drew whimsical…
Join us for a Gallery Game Night, where we’ll explore the permanent collection through interactive, art-focused games and creative sketching activities. This event is appropriate for all ages.
This fall, Helen Frankenthaler's large-scale painting Code Blue returns from New York, where it was included in the Gagosian exhibition Helen Frankenthaler: The Moment and the Distance. Celebrate the return of this beloved part of the KIA's permanent collection with a screening of The Eye is the First Circle. Inspired by Mary Gabriel's bestseller Ninth…
In the wake of Pearl Harbor and the United States’ declaration of war on Japan, the U.S. government ordered the removal of more than 120,000 men, women, and children from their homes based on their Japanese ancestry and imprisoned them in remote incarceration camps. Two-thirds were U.S. citizens. In this talk, Dr. Donna Nagata will…