Topaz Stories Exhibit Visits USU
On Display: Now-February 29 | Atrium and Lower Level
Contact: Devin Greener, Exhibition Committee Chair | devin.greener@usu.edu
An illustration featured in Topaz Stories
[Logan] -- USU Libraries presents the Friends of the Topaz Museum’s Topaz Stories: Remembering the Japanese American Incarceration, a Utah Arts & Museums Traveling Exhibition, from Jan. 14 through Feb. 29 at The Merrill-Cazier Library. The exhibit captures personal stories of Japanese Americans who were incarcerated in Topaz, Utah during World War II because of their ancestry.
The Friends of Topaz is an informal, grassroots group based in the San Francisco Bay Area, where most of the Topaz incarcerees were from. Founded in 2013 to promote and fundraise for the building of the Topaz Museum in Delta, Utah, FOT seeks to promote awareness of the wartime incarceration through the preservation and sharing of these stories, and to illustrate the human cost of injustice in very personal terms.
From 2018-the present, the Topaz Stories Project has gathered about 80 stories from Topaz survivors or their descendants. From this collection, stories were selected for the Utah Arts & Museums’ Traveling Exhibition Program. The exhibition will be located in the Library's atrium and lower level.
Utah Arts & Museums’ Traveling Exhibit Program is a statewide outreach program that provides schools, museums, libraries, and community galleries with the opportunity to bring curated exhibitions to their community. This program is supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. For more information on participating in the program, please contact Fletcher Booth at fbooth@utah.gov
Utah Arts & Museums is a division of the Utah Department of Heritage and Arts (DHA). To enrich the quality of life for the people of Utah, DHA creates, preserves, and promotes Heritage and Arts. The Division provides funding, education, and technical services to individuals and organizations statewide so that all Utahns, regardless of race, gender, ethnicity or economic status, can access, understand, and receive the benefits of arts and culture. Additional information on the programs and services can be found at artsandmuseums.utah.gov.