[This is a guest post written by Karen Adjei, an iSchool Field Study Intern for Fall 2023 at the Prange Collection.]
As a child growing up in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, I fell in love with museums and the cultural discoveries and joy-inspiring experiences they produced. Fast-forward to being a current Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) graduate student at the University of Maryland, I have been keen on figuring out ways to further realize my interest in concurrently working with libraries and museums, especially as it relates to Japan. Even though libraries and museums are both part of the galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAM) field, these modalities of knowledge creation and dissemination are often siloed. Determined to marry my interests through experiential professional development opportunities, I pursued working with the Gordon W. Prange Collection to learn more about exhibition development and programming that was anchored by the specialization of academic librarianship. Working at the Prange Collection provided me with an exciting opportunity to be mentored under the guidance of Curator Kana Jenkins, Coordinator Motoko Lezec, and Preservation Specialist Kirsten Gaffke in understanding the full cycle of exhibition development. In addition, this field study experience allowed me to continue to build off of two information foundations in pursuit of curatorial opportunities: a theoretical foundation gained during my undergraduate studies of History and Asian American Studies that was focused on the Japanese American Redress Movement; and a postgraduate practical foundation of storytelling and collections care using Japanese materials from my time at the Smithsonian Institution.
My field study at the Prange Collection culminated with my first curated exhibit, A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words: Connecting Through Canon in Post-Occupation Japan, which tells the story of a second-generation Greek immigrant serviceman, George Peter Demeroukas, who was drafted to serve in Japan at the onset of the Cold War. This element of capturing and sharing one’s own experience is reflected within and beyond the title of the exhibit. Canon was one of the camera models that Demeroukas used to capture his time throughout Japan. Canon is the mode through which he shared his experiences to his family, and by extension, present-day library and museum goers. And canon can also be seen as Demeroukas’s personalized criterion of how one authentically strives to form connections in a new place and culture that we are privileged to see and reflect on how this can translate into our own triumphs and struggles with belonging in another culture.
My documentation of archival practice and multimodal storytelling with the collection as well as the challenges and successes of the entire curation process is shared on the North American Coordinating Council on Japanese Library Resources and their Japanese Studies Spotlight Series. I found these processes not only professionally but also personally rewarding. As I figured out how to creatively introduce patrons to the documentation of one person’s very human experience of being immersed in another country, I felt myself becoming personally connected to these past experiences as well. Many of the places that Demeroukas had visited during his military service were places that I too had visited on recent trips to Japan, and I found myself reflecting more deeply on the layers of history embedded in the towns and cities throughout Japan that many have passed through. It is this universal experience of identity and belonging that resonates with others as one moves through the exhibition, and I was able to serve as a guide on this journey through the exhibit with tours that I had the opportunity to lead. Two comments from the provided feedback form succinctly capture one of my goals for the project:
“…there was no omission about George Demeroukas and who he was. He was a rule breaker and at some points very problematic but he was human documenting a very real period of Occupation. I think the complications of something innocent like journaling is interesting and it’s conveyed in this mini exhibit.”
“…the curation stayed true to what George wrote and photographed – it didn’t edit out anything, even pictures or text that are questionable. It really honestly shows how Americans perceived the Japanese people and their customs. It’s better to confront these truths than to shy away.”
Patrons from these diverse audiences were drawn to various aspects of Demeroukas’s unique, distinctive, and at times unorthodox ways of interacting with the Japanese. On one hand, they may not have entirely agreed with all aspects of his approach, as it brought up considerations of photographing subjects and consent, respect of privacy when observing religious customs, and language used when speaking about and labeling another community. On the other hand, in pondering over his photography and journal entries, there is also a sense of admiration gained for Demeroukas’s ability to quickly learn the language, embrace food cultures and customs, and appreciate the everyday interactions with people who built up the backbone of Japan’s economic and political relaunch onto the international stage during the 1950s. Allowing his story to speak for itself in all of its fullness allowed people to appreciate and better understand the societal changes of the geopolitics of Japan that were naturally captured in his photos, appealing to the power of vernacular photographs. At this intersection of academic librarianship and exhibition curation, the exhibit not only encourages students and scholars to contemplate these historical and social dynamics, but it also aims to inspire people to envision how they too can authentically and sensitively interact with the cultures and communities around them in order to cultivate connection and belonging beyond barriers.
In this way, my field study at the Prange Collection also helped me to crystalize my desired ethos and approach to curation through the lens of librarianship. They both are inspired by Makoto Fujimura’s call of “culture care” as well as the theory, method, and practice of “restorative history”, developed out of the Center for Restorative History founded by Tsione Wolde-Michael and Nancy Bercaw. Culture care is a call to cultural stewardship, where one is invited to nurture culture in ways that help people thrive and to reach across boundaries with understanding, reconciliation, and healing. Similarly, restorative history helps communities to examine the past in order to better understand the root causes of historical harms as part of the process of working towards a better future. With this combination, I seek to inspire patrons through the arts and information to be curious about the past in order to positively interact with the present and to envision a better future. I look forward to seeing how this experience and these passions will further unfold, and I will always be thankful to the Prange Collection staff for providing a supportive space to explore and grow as an information professional.
Gordon W. Prange Collection 