TeenTix Blog Museum Tour

Resisters: A Legacy of Movement from the Japanese American Incarceration is an unintentionally misleading gallery. The impersonal nature from which history is often told is drastically subverted in this exhibit, featured at the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience from October 14, 2022, to September 17, 2023. The gallery is a special exhibition designed by Scott Méxcal, written by Tamiko Nimura, and developed by Mikala Woodward. The exhibit is structured similarly to a maze, where you—placed into the shoes of Japanese Americans facing these aggressions—are led through the passage of time without being able to anticipate what will come up next.

Stories in history that are fraught with tragedy are often dulled down into easy, comprehensible individual values when they are retold. Retellings frequently pick and choose their facts simply by virtue of being a retelling. It would be impossible to cover every single event without meticulously recreating it step by step, as some parts are naturally lost over time. To only cover the certain pieces of the exhibit that remain would be an injustice to all the stories left untold—and to cover the entire exhibit as if it is a holistic record of internment camps would do the same. Instead of picking and choosing a few specific stories, this exhibit and review ask the viewer to put themselves through the experience of internment and view each possible story offered through their own lens. You can hear the recorded testimonies throughout the exhibits echoing through history, just as the exhibit is set up as a timeline that prevents you from seeing what's left to come.

Let's start from the vantage point of a bug. Imagine the sheer scale of everything never before acknowledged—the foundations of the environment around, where the very roots of the buildings around you are anchored. Even in this scenario, it is tempting to focus on the central character of the bug. However, after visiting From the Ground Up: Black Architects and Designers at the Museum of History and Industry, this perspective may be shifted into one that is not typically adopted. The exhibit asks, what parts of your surroundings have you brushed past in noticing? Who was integral to the existence of these surroundings?

As David Adjaye said, "Buildings are deeply emotive structures which form our psyche. People think they're just things they maneuver through, but the make-up of a person is influenced by the nature of spaces." The exhibit itself was presented overlooking Lake Union with the information laid out in placards, which lent an integrated feel to the exhibit—seemingly a conscious choice, as a note by the window asks the viewer to consider their own surroundings more thoughtfully. The pieces were varied but characteristic of the works typically found at MOHAI, though this exhibit was a bit more information-dense than others, which made fully understanding it a longer endeavor. There were rows designating specific architects and their contributions, as well as institutes that these architects contributed to, which organized information presented in a clear, chronological order. There was also an interactive element where children could create their own buildings, and several video stations within the exhibit. From the Group Up, photo courtesy of MOHAI

Equal parts enthralling and bewildering, your queries will spiral as you immerse yourself in Donna Huanca’s MAGMA SLIT. Transporting the viewer from the mundane reality of Seattle traffic and tedious routine, Huanca provides a reprieve from the ordinary, casting the viewer into a cathartic land of discovery. Residing in the Henry Art Gallery, MAGMA SLIT consists of four expansive paintings depicting each season, bringing life to their formerly inanimate white backdrop. These paintings emerged from an array of digitally printed photographs from Huanca’s life, which were stitched together and transformed into the paintings. Huanca coated these foundations with vivid strokes of paint, hues primarily corresponding with their associated seasons: warmer tones depicting summer, cooler ones characterizing winter, and a flurried blend of both expressing the transitory seasons of spring and fall. Echoed with hints of life, these paintings display glimpses of the photographs of people and natural textures concealed within them, providing a real life connection between the audience and Huanca’s abstract world.

In the middle of the exhibit lies a stage. Down the center, a line of six steel sheets with alternating reflective and opaque sides create a transcendent mirror effect. This allows you to simultaneously view slivers of the paintings behind you, before you, and even catch glimpses of yourself. Cast against the vibrant settings of the paintings, viewers are further immersed in Huanca’s surreal world by becoming part of it. This deepens the viewer’s connection with the exhibit through encouraging them to relate Huanca’s pieces to themselves. Donna Huanca, Installation view of Donna Huanca: MAGMA SLIT, 2022, Henry Art Gallery, University of Seattle, Washington. Photo: Jonathan Vanderweit courtesy of the Henry Art Gallery.

MoPOP, formerly known as The EMP, has always been the epicenter for all things pop culture, art, and music in Seattle and is constantly showcasing art in innovative ways. Contact High: A Visual History of Hip-Hop is no exception. This exhibit features four decades of hip-hop through film and digital photography, giving visitors a chance to know what photos didn’t make it onto classic album covers and magazine spreads while overall celebrating the culture and craft that is hip-hop.

Rickey Powell’s work welcomes me at the entrance, a magnificent glowing wall with some of Powell’s original slides from the 80s and 90s. Seeing familiar faces like rapper Chuck D of Public Enemy and TV host Oprah excited me for the work ahead. Throughout the first space of the exhibit, contact sheets (a preview of all the images on the roll of film), framed prints, and magazine spreads tell magnificent stories. It was at this moment that I understood “visual history” to be a completely accurate description of the exhibition.