Welcome to the Exhibit
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Images and Imaginings of Internment*: Comics and Illustrations of Camp is a virtual exhibition that examines visual representations of the Japanese American wartime incarceration created during World War II to the present. Because individuals incarcerated in WWII Internment camps were not permitted to record their daily lives via film or photography, much of the representational data of day-to-day life in internment camps was captured via comics, art, and illustrations. Material culture, defined as art and craft created in the internment camps, has been documented to some degree (Eaton 1952, Gesenway and Roseman 1987, Hirabayashi, Hirasuna 2005, and Takaragawa 2015), but to date, there is no comprehensive catalog of the comics and illustrations made both inside and outside of the camps that document or represent camp life. This exhibition seeks to examine how people represented their experiences inside the camp while also examining how life in the camps was being presented by others. It spotlights the Japanese American internment in US and California history as an important, but also often forgotten part of US history. However, new visual narratives of the internment that have proliferated in the last decade which signifies its continued significance.
*Internment is a contested term. Link for full discussion.
