"Pictures of Executive Order 9066" Comes to Octave 9: Raisbeck Music Center in Early 2022

The Seattle Symphony is honored to present “Pictures of Executive Order 9066” an immersive multi-media exhibit that explores the rippling impact of Executive Order 9066. The presentation will be in Octave 9: Raisbeck Music Center at Benaroya Hall on January 27, January 29 and February 19, 2022, and marks the 80th anniversary of Executive Order 9066.

Issued on February 19, 1942, Executive Order 9066 authorized the relocation and incarceration of more than 100,000 innocent Japanese American citizens during World War II. Over the course of several months, Japanese American men, women and children were removed from their homes and held at internment camps without due process. The executive order indelibly changed their lives and the history of the Puget Sound region, with many lingering effects still felt today.

“Pictures of Executive Order 9066” is a collaboration between award-winning filmmaker JJ Gerber and singer, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter Kishi Bashi that explores the stories of those impacted by Executive Order 9066 in an interactive exhibit. Inspired by the breathtaking photo documentation of the Japanese American incarceration during World War II by seminal photographer Dorothea Lange, this 10-minute self-guided multi-media experience, created especially for the immersive screens in Octave 9: Raisbeck Music Center, also features oral histories supplied by Densho.

The “Pictures of Executive Order 9066” exhibit opening hours are as follows:

Thursday, January 27, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Saturday, January 29, from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Saturday, February 19, from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Tickets: $12 admission; EO9066 concert ticket holders will receive a promo code to book complimentary tickets for the exhibit. New buyers may add complimentary exhibit tickets along with their EO9066 concert purchase.

The exhibit is being presented alongside the Seattle Symphony’s EO9066 program. The orchestra showcases two works inspired by the executive order — first, the world premiere of Paul Chihara’s Beyond the Hills, a Seattle Symphony commission; then the musicians are joined onstage by Seattle-born Kishi Bashi for his own Improvisations on EO9066; Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 rounds out the program. Norman Huynh conducts the EO9066 program on January 27 and 29.