Special Exhibitions
- The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942-1946
- Upcoming Special Exhibitions
The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942-1946
February 5 – May 31, 2012
The Art of Gaman is a special exhibition in which The Breman Museum will be showcasing the arts and crafts made by Japanese Americans in U.S. internment camps during World War II. It is a universally uplifting story for its celebration of the nobility of the human spirit in adversity.
Soon after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, all ethnic Japanese on the West Coast—more than two-thirds of whom were American citizens by birth—were ordered to leave their homes and move to ten inland internment camps for the duration of the war. While in these bleak camps, the internees used scraps and found materials to make furniture and other objects to beautify their surroundings.
Gaman is a Japanese word meaning to bear the seemingly unbearable with dignity and patience. Arts and crafts became essential for simple creature comforts and emotional survival. More than one hundred objects, most of which are on loan from former internees or their families, will be displayed in their historical context through photos and videos from the era.
The opening program of a Chai Tea (chai means "life" in Hebrew) will be Sunday, February 19, the 70th anniversary of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s signing Executive Order 9066, which led to the incarceration of all ethnic Japanese living on the West Coast. Learn more and reserve your spot.
In mounting the Art of Gaman, The Breman is fulfilling its mission to explore the universal themes of human dignity and respect for difference through the lens of the Jewish experience and educating a new generation.
This exhibition was made possible by a generous gift from the Livingston Foundation.
The Breman is grateful to our exhibition partners:
The Japanese American Citizens League, Southeast Chapter
Asian Pacific American Historical Society OCA-Georgia
The Office of the Consulate-General of Japan in Atlanta
Artist Unidentified, Interned at Heart Mountain, Wyoming, Camp Scene, Wood, paint, Collection of the Japanese American Museum of San José, From "Art of Gaman" by Delphine Hirasuna, ©2005, Ten Speed. Terry Heffernan photo.
Upcoming Special Exhibitions
Chosen Food
Oct. 28, 2012 – April 7 2013
If every meal is a set of choices, what does the food we choose to eat say about who we are? Our exhibition Chosen Food: Cuisine, Culture, American Jewish Identity will examine the significance of Jewish meals. Organized by the Jewish Museum of Baltimore, this exhibit will include Atlantan’s opinions, recollections, photographs and memorabilia of cooking and eating “Jewishly” as well as others from all around the United States.
Purim ladies from Chosen Food
Project Mah Jongg
April 21 – August 2013
This wildly popular exhibition explores the traditions, history, and meaning of the game of mah jongg in Jewish-American life from the 1920s to today. Project Mah Jongg is available for rental beginning March 2011.
The game of mah jongg is explored in dynamic formats throughout the exhibition, including 20th century popular objects and a visitor-activated soundscape that features clacking tiles, exclamations from games by Jewish-American and Chinese-American players, reminiscences, and vintage music. Large-scale graphics by Isaac Mizrahi, Maira Kalman, Bruce McCall, and Christoph Niemann illustrate mah jongg as ongoing muse for contemporary artists. A game table at the core of the exhibition invites visitors to engage in the continuing tradition.
The exhibition serves as historical treatment of the topic, a placeholder for memory, a generator of whimsy, and a stage set for the game’s continuation. The environment conveys how mah jongg is much more than a game: it is a carrier of fantasy, identity, memory, and meaning.
Race: Are We So Different?
September 13, 2013 – January 2014
We all know that people look different. Throughout history, those differences have been a source of strength, community and personal identity. They have also been the basis for discrimination and oppression.
And while those differences are socially and culturally real, contemporary scientific understanding of race and human variation is complex and may challenge how we think about it. RACE: Are We So Different? helps visitors understand what race is and what it is not. It gives them the tools to recognize racial ideas and practices in contemporary American life.
The exhibit explores three themes: the everyday experience of race, the contemporary science that is challenging common ideas about race, and the history of this idea in the United States.