Oakland Museum of California Announces BeHere / 1942: A New Lens on the Japanese American Incarceration
Immersive augmented reality installation by Masaki Fujihata invites visitors to confront history and its relevance today
Exhibition on View | 9月 18–12月 27, 2026 | PRESS KIT
Press Preview + Opening Celebration | 星期四, 9月 17, 2026 | RSVP HERE
“My aim was to peer deeply into photographs…to derive from them more than was visible on the surface.”
—Masaki Fujihata
(Oakland, CA) 七月 28, 2026 — This fall, the Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) presents BeHere / 1942: A New Lens on the Japanese American Incarceration. In this immersive installation, Japanese artist Masaki Fujihata intimately explores how photographs shape what we see, know, and feel about history. Through immersive installations of historic images and augmented reality (AR) experiences, the exhibition brings visitors into the moments of 1942—before Japanese Americans in Oakland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles were transported to concentration camps during World War II.
Drawing from the archives of photographers Dorothea Lange and Russell Lee, who documented the forced incarceration of Japanese Americans in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, Fujihata enlarges, zooms into, and activates their images to encourage visitors to look more closely. Visitors are invited to see the photographs not as fixed historical documents, but as images whose meaning is shaped by both what is shown and what lies beyond the frame.
BeHere / 1942 transforms the Great Hall into an immersive environment of large-scale photographic projections, video, and augmented reality (AR). Visitors use AR devices to experience the gallery layered in real time with digital figures that bring the past into the present. Originally developed by the Yanai Initiative at UCLA and presented at the Japanese American National Museum in 2022, OMCA’s exhibition features new elements specific to the Bay Area. The installation extends beyond the Great Hall into Oak Street Plaza, where a life-size image of Japanese Americans lined up to board buses becomes the basis for an AR experience. Through the AR app, visitors see people moving as they might have in 1942 layered over the plaza, connecting this history directly to the OMCA landscape. This connection is further highlighted as the OMCA presentation draws from Dorothea Lange’s 1942 photographs of San Francisco and Oakland, including images taken directly across the street from what is now the Oakland Museum of California.
Also special to OMCA’s exhibition is a newly developed three-screen video installation featuring Bay Area participants, including individuals with personal or familial connections to Japanese American incarceration, alongside others with connections to other immigration histories.
Together, these additions ground the national history of Japanese American incarceration in the local landscapes where it unfolded, inviting visitors to consider how the legacies of exclusion continue to shape communities today.
“As you move through the exhibition, you begin to see how images are constructed—and how power operates through them,” said Carin Adams, Curator of Art at OMCA. “That realization doesn’t stay in 1942. It sharpens our awareness of the present, and the ways civil liberties can be challenged or eroded in any era.”
Rooted in reflection and participation, BeHere / 1942 is not a traditional history exhibition, but an artistic exploration of image-making, memory, and civic responsibility.
ABOUT MASAKI FUJIHATA
Masaki Fujihata is a pioneering media artist whose work explores memory, perception, and the construction of history through emerging technologies. His immersive installations have been presented internationally and invite audiences to actively engage with the processes that shape what we see and know.
Contact:
Azayza Jimenez
[email protected], 510-318-8467
Scott Horton
[email protected]
Sponsors
Support for BeHere / 1942: A New Lens on the Japanese American Incarceration is provided by The Oakland Museum Women’s Board and the Japanese American Community Foundation.
BeHere / 1942: A New Lens on the Japanese American Incarceration is an exhibit by the Yanai Initiative for Globalizing Japanese Humanities at UCLA and Waseda University, in collaboration with the Oakland Museum of California. BeHere / 1942 was first exhibited at the Japanese American National Museum, where it was co-presented by the museum and the Yanai Initiative..
ABOUT THE YANAI INITIATIVE
The Yanai Initiative for Globalizing Japanese Humanities is a collaborative project of UCLA and Waseda University in Tokyo. It was established in 2014 to realize a sustainable, equitable, globally interconnected future for the Japanese humanities. Its activities include the advancement of scholarship on Japanese literature and the arts; support for literary translation; public programs on performance, film, design, music, art, food, and architecture; and the creation of digital educational content and smartphone apps. Its Japan Past & Present is a global information hub and repository that promotes research and teaching in the Japanese humanities across disciplinary, temporal, and geographic borders. For more information, visit yanai-initiative.ucla.edu.
ABOUT THE JAPANESE AMERICAN NATIONAL MUSEUM (JANM)
Established in 1985, JANM promotes understanding and appreciation of America’s ethnic and cultural diversity by sharing the Japanese American experience. Located in the historic Little Tokyo district of downtown Los Angeles, JANM is a hybrid institution that straddles traditional museum categories and strives to provide a voice for Japanese Americans as well as a forum that enables all people to explore their own heritage and culture. Since opening to the public in 1992, JANM has presented over 70 exhibitions onsite while traveling 17 exhibits to venues such as the Smithsonian Institution and the Ellis Island Museum in the United States, and to several leading cultural museums in Japan and South America. For more information, visit janm.org.
ABOUT THE OAKLAND MUSEUM OF CALIFORNIA
Founded in 1969 as the “museum of the people,” the Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) tells the diverse stories of California’s art, history, and natural environment. Through inclusive exhibitions, public programs, and educational initiatives, OMCA creates space for meaningful dialogue and strives to build more equitable, empathetic, and connected communities. With more than 2 million objects, OMCA’s collection of art, history, and natural science is a resource for understanding California’s dynamic heritage—all within its 110,000-square-foot gallery space and seven-acre campus. A leading Bay Area cultural institution, OMCA is dedicated to fostering an environment where visitors from the region, state, and beyond feel valued and empowered to shape the future of California’s cultural landscape.
VISITOR INFORMATION
The Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) is located at 1000 Oak Street, at 10th Street, in Oakland. All-inclusive Museum admission is $25 general admission; $22 for seniors; $18 for youth ages 12 to 17, as well as for students and educators with valid ID; and free for Members and children 12 and under. OMCA offers onsite underground parking and is conveniently located one block from the Lake Merritt BART station, on the corner of 10th Street and Oak Street. An accessibility ramp is located at the 1000 Oak Street main entrance to the Museum.