Nikkei National Museum: Writing Wrongs with Digital Museums of Canada

Japanese Canadian protest letters of the 1940s

Burnaby, Canada

Overview

The Writing Wrongs project is inspired by the recent discovery of 300+ historic letters of appeal written by interned Japanese-Canadians to government authorities during the Second World War. Taken together, the letters form a visceral voice from our past, speaking to the extreme injustice visited upon a marginalized people, evoking the helplessness of human displacement and drawing inevitable connections to the displacement crises of our time.

Writing Wrongs won BC Historical Federation Storytelling Award in 2022

Scope Highlights

  • Narrative Strategy
  • Archival Production
  • Concept Development
  • UI and UX Design
  • Creative Direction

To visit this exhibit online, please visit Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre.

An immersive journey hinging on a central “Right to Home” theme, Writing Wrongs is structured as a four-part narrative.

The journey features an integrated dialogue space, informed by curriculum requirements, to support narrative co-creation, exchange, and discussion.

Visually evocative, this web-based exhibit features video vignettes, original audio, archival photos, and curated sets of letters written by both Issei (first generation immigrants) and Nisei (Canadian born) Japanese Canadians.

ngx worked closely with Nikkei National Museum, Digital Museums Canada, Royal British Columbia Museum, Tabata Productions, educators, and Japanese-Canadian voices nationwide, in the conceptualization, planning, design, and production of this unforgettable digital narrative.