Highlighting Untold Histories of the Pacific Northwest with MOHAI Curator’s Fellows

In 2022, our inaugural Fellow Brittney Frantece explored the photographs of the Al Smith Collection. Frantece, a literacy and art critic and curator, used methodologies from her English PhD studies to investigate ways of Black world building in the mid-20th century using Smith’s photos. In her program, Brittney highlighted some of the photos she explored and guided program participants through their own photo exploration.

Our second Curator’s Fellow, Linda Lee, works in museum exhibit design and production. Her 2023 Curator’s Fellowship project focused the stories of the often-unnamed immigrants and community members of Seattle. Called Transformation Through Immigration, Lee’s program featured artifacts donated to MOHAI by Lillian Good Dip and Ann Dulien.

Last year, Curator’s Fellow Polly Yorioka’s project Forgotten Dolls, Remembered Stories, explored the history of a set of Boy’s and Girl’s Day dolls left with Bailey Gatzert Elementary School in 1942, when Japanese American families were incarcerated during World War II. In 1972, the school donated to MOHAI dolls that had not been reclaimed by families after the war. In her project, Polly researched the students at Bailey Gatzert Elementary who were incarcerated and shared their stories in her program.

Join us on Tuesday, October 21 at 7 pm to learn more about this year’s fellow Thanh Tân’s project: a look at photographs in MOHAI’s archives from the early settlement years of Southeast Asian immigrants and refugees who came to the Puget Sound region after the Vietnam War.