Please join HCCC for a members-only private tour of “The Art of Gaman” at Holocaust Museum Houston’s Morgan Family Center, on Tuesday, August 18th, 5:30 – 7:00 PM. On this special evening, HCCC members are invited to learn about the exhibition and mingle with HCCC Board, staff and other members.
“The Art of Gaman” showcases more than 120 artifacts made by Japanese Americans while they were incarcerated in camps during World War II. The exhibition explores the creativity and ingenuity of these internees, as well as the Japanese concept of gam an, which means “to endure the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity.”
Struggling to form communities within the camps, the internees fashioned furniture from scrap lumber, wove baskets from unravelled twine and made corsages from shells dug up from an ancient seabed.
Works on display range from tools, decorative objects, woodcarvings, paintings, furniture, toys and more and are presented with historical context through photographs, documents and films. Most of the objects on view are on loan from former internees or their families. Revealing a dark, yet important chapter in American history, “The Art of Gaman” is a moving display of perseverance, resourcefulness and the power of the human spirit.
To become a member of HCCC, click here.
Please email hschiappa@crafthouston.org to RSVP by Friday, August 14th, 2015.
Above: Reprinted from “The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942-1946” (Ten Speed Press, c. 2005), by Delphine Hirasuna with design by Kit Hinrichs and photography by Terry Heffernan.
