Heart Mountain Interpretive Learning Center

Powell, Wyoming

Winner: Excellence in Exhibition, AAM

Winner: NAI Best Interpretive Media, Interior Exhibition

This permanent exhibition interprets a WWII Japanese American internment camp site. Since the experiences and voices of former detainees are central to the exhibition, I facilitated numerous stakeholder meetings.

Visitors can explore immersive environments, and experience first-hand accounts of life at camp.

The entrance to the Interpretive Learning Center explores what life was like for detainees before World War II.

A pile of bags sit outside an image of a train car that carried detainees to Heart Mountain.

A scale model of the camp is flanked by "guard towers" holding interactive screens. Other displays in this area explore daily life for detainees at Heart Mountain.

Half of a barracks space is a glassed-in artifact display, filled with furniture, clothes, and housewares.

Ike Hatchimonji points to barracks buildings during the opening of The Heart Mountain Interpretive Learning Center outside of Cody, Wyoming. From 1942 to 1945, nearly 14,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry were imprisoned at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center - one of 10 War Relocation Authority (WRA) concentration camps. Photo by Kevin J. Miyazaki

At the entry to the museum, visitors get a ticket in the form of a tag--like those that detainees were forced to wear. At the end of their visit, people can leave the tag on a display along with a message.