Best Bets: Oakland Museum of California, San Jose Jazz, Wake the Dead, Elim Chan, ‘The Marriage of Figaro’ – Local News Matters

Best Bets: Oakland Museum of California, San Jose Jazz, Wake the Dead, Elim Chan, ‘The Marriage of Figaro’  Local News Matters

Freebie of the week: Acclaimed Japanese interactive/media artist Masaki Fujihata’s latest project goes behind one of the darkest chapters in American Freebie of the week: Acclaimed Japanese interactive/media artist Masaki Fujihata’s latest project goes behind one of the darkest chapters in American history to examine how photographs impact viewer’s knowledge and memory. Those interested can view the results of that effort for free this Sunday in “BeHere/1942: A New Lens on the Japanese American Incarceration,” showing now through Dec. 27 at the Oakland Museum of California. In the exhibit, Fujihata explores the construction and visual impact of scores of iconic photographs by Dorothea Lange and Russell Lee, who chronicled the U.S.

incarceration of Japanese Americans in the Bay Area and Los Angeles in 1942. Many of the most vivid photos center on Japanese American individuals and families waiting in parking lots to be picked up and transported to the incarceration camps. Located in the Great Hall and Oak Street Plaza, Fujihata isolates and enlarges segments of the photographs to examine their emotional impact and explore the photographers’ roles in documenting history. The exhibit singles out Bay Area residents who are among those deported, noting that one of the pickup locations was practically across the street from the museum. Fujihata has also created a video of the Bay Area residents involved