Look at these awesome pictures! Photos by Richard Watanabe and Nobuyuki Okada.
Author: Brian DeGuzman
Year of the Rabbit: Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo opens July 9th
SAVE THE DATE:
On Saturday JULY 9, 2011, Year of the Rabbit: Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo opens to the public.
Admission is also free because July 9th is our Target Free Family Saturday! And for all you Stan Sakai fans–he will be at JANM for a demonstration, talk, and signing of his new book, Usagi Yojimbo Volume 25: Fox Hunt.
For more information about our Target Day, visit: yay, janm events!
X-Lab Evokes Conscious Dialogue
I work in Visitor Services, so I open and close the galleries a few days each week. Lately, I’ve noticed that whenever I walk into X-Lab, something is always different–whether it’s the rifled-through laminated newspapers at the 1940s radio or new drawings on our “Only What You Can Carry” magnet board.
The following post-it activity is the one activity that has changed the most over time. You see–I’m all about conscious dialogue, so this activity in particular is one of my favorites. When the exhibition team put X-Lab together, they posed a question on our wall. In several weeks’ passing, the question became so hotly debated, it was as if our visitors themselves were evolving the activity. It reminds me of a some sort of crazy online comic book message board, except that it’s all about civil rights–not so much Batman vs. Superman.
Red post-its mean “NO”, yellow post-its mean “UNDECIDED”, and blue post-its mean “YES”. Our question was:
“Is it important to OBEY government rules in times of national crisis even if it means LOSS of privacy and civil rights?”
Some responses were:
YES, because… “in times of crisis, governments tend to react drastically, and I need to keep my family and I as safe as I possibly can.”
UNDECIDED, because… “in a time of emergency, you look to your government for help; however, privacy is highly important for anyone and so are a person’s rights as a human!”
NO, because… “if the rules go against the basic fundamentals of equality and freedom, then it goes against what it means to be a U.S. citizen.”
So how would YOU respond?
Member Appreciation Days!
Member Appreciation Days is this Friday, May 20th through Sunday, May 22nd. We’ll be giving 20% off store purchases to our museum members and to the members of the following cultural institutions. So sign up for a JANM membership and start your museum shopping spree on the cheap!
Not in the L.A. area? We’re honoring the 20% discount at our Museum Store Online too!
Check janmstore.com for full details >>
|
www.theautry.org • 323.677.2000 www.olacathedral.org • 213.680.5277 www.camla.org • 213.485.8567 www.cafam.org • 323.937.4230 x22 www.fidmmuseum.org • 213.623.5821 www.fowler.ucla.edu • 310.206.7004 www.heritagesquare.org • 323.225.2700 www.getty.edu • 310.440.7300 www.laphilstore.com • 213.972.3440 www.librarystore.org • 213.228.7550 (Grand Ave. location only) MOCA Grand Avenue • 213.621.1710 www.moca.org www.molaa.org • 562.216.4102 www.ocma.net • 949.759.1122 www.pacificasiamuseum.org • 626.449.2742 x20 www.pmcaonline.org • 626.568.3665 www.pasadenahistory.org • 626.577.1660 www.TheSanDiegoMuseumofArt.org • 619.696.1971 www.smmoa.org • 310.586.6488 www.skirball.org • 310.440.4505 |
X-Lab Visitor Videos!
Our newest, most current exhibit, Xploration Lab, is a part-classroom, part-prototype “black box” exhibit. Visitors can participate and experiment with hands-on activities designed to engage audiences of all ages about the World War II Japanese American experience.
In laying the groundwork for X-Lab, our team of curators, education specialists, media arts producers and designers envisioned an exhibit that would uniquely grab the attention of visitors—spawning the development of several activities. Some of these activities include a vintage 1940s-era radio that you can tune to World War II broadcasts; J.A. Express, which is a video montage encapsulating several decades of Japanese American pre-War history into 180 seconds; and an “only what you can carry” chamber, which emulates the urgency facing families who were forced to pack their lives into a single suitcase in preparation for removal as President Roosevelt decreed in Executive Order 9066.
The exhibition team genuinely wanted to consider how our visitors would react to X-Lab. In order to capture these reactions, we installed a large touchscreen iMac–equipped with a webcam and a microphone. This was used to record visitor responses to our thought-provoking questions, such as:
“Imagine if the government suspected you of being disloyal, how would you respond?”
http://www.youtube.com/user/janmdotorg#p/c/BACC8700A9E554FE/0/wEwQmqlg6xk
View more Xlab visitor videos >>
Xploration Lab
Through June 12, 2011
Japanese American National Museum
For anyone who’s been through X-Lab, what was your favorite activity?