World War Bonsai: Remembrance & Resilience

Pacific Bonsai Museum’s special exhibition for 2020 and 2021, World War Bonsai: Remembrance & Resilience, traces the cultural practice of bonsai in location and time-in Japan and in the United States, from the pre-war WWII period, through wartime, amid incarceration, and at peace. With bonsai, artifacts, documents, and photographs, the exhibition shares the little-known stories of the people who ingeniously and courageously cared for bonsai, shared their art, and spurred a flourishing, global practice despite overwhelming hardships.
In this short documentary, Mirai visits the exhibit and speaks with museum curator Aarin Packard, and featured exhibit artist, Erin Shigaki to go deeper into the intention and perspectives behind their work, as well as the importance of continuing to confront the realities and residual damage of Japanese American incarceration during WWII.
Learn more about this often overlooked and under told part of bonsai history at:
pacificbonsaim...
What kind of ancestor do you want to be?

[@lamvuondep]

Love bonsai

[@HansKaramottoBonsai]

Sigh!!! It was truly emotional to see and hear how the love for Bonsai helped those people to cope and overcome their heartaches and troubles! Just like Bonsai today helps me and many others to overcome ours! Very well made and a very important subject indeed! Thanks for that Mirai!!! 🙏🙏 Hans van Meer. Karamotto Bonsai.

[@hogdog567]

“Never again is now”... I felt that. Thank you.

[@SaswataNandiVlogs]

Love your Work ❤❤❤❤

[@qheffner7083]

Man I can’t wait to go visit that museum!!

[@jackwalters283]

Powerful

[@amazingmaples]

Aarin, fabulous job with the bonsai display and the subject matter. World War II was a very hard time in American history for all. In the PNW and the west coast, this incarceration of Japanese was very painful for many people and unfair. It is great for the Pacific Bonsai Museum to bring this historical information forward. It is extremely important to show how the love for bonsai can help overshadows the pains of what life brings us.

[@andrewsnyder3359]

I appreciate this video, thanks for telling a potion of this story.

[@yvesvermeren4409]

"Lest we forget"..This shows how valuable the art Bonsai is. Grateful as a gift out of dark history...Great presentation..!!

[@aaronlambert6728]

Loved it!

[@invertevision4757]

Ok, so I'm a HUGE Mirai guy and I LOVE all of the content created on here, via Mirai Live, displays, podcasts,...you name it. I have to say though, this one really does something to me! Some of the frames in this piece, the commentary in the background, the angles...Josh, not sure if it was just you that did all the camera work but man this is magic!!! Truthful, inspirational, leading, soulful...Ryan can't ask what you were trying to accomplish because it says it all! :-) I truly am blown away not only by the trees, but absolutely everything in the exhibit! The wood pots are phenomenal! The dead tree in the broken pot says so so much...very deep and lovely piece Mirai! Just beautiful! It's stuff like this that should be talked about, not stupid ass politics lol, just sayin... -Korey_WestTN

[@mikewaterhouse7763]

Thank you Ryan and the entire staff of Mirai for sharing. As a vet and a Bonsai artist it really hits home.

[@JordiOostmeijer]

Very inspiring portrait and art installation. Beautifully done!

[@stonemonkey1968]

Just simply beautiful 🙏

[@waterlover]

I need to visit this museum

[@hectordehesa2118]

Wow that was really powerful. Gotta get up there to PBM!

[@frenchinnorway]

amazing museum :)

[@Bonsaicare86]

Wonderful Video thank you

[@BONSAIenCORTO]

Me han encantado las macetas de madera.

[@davidjohnson7508]

A war crime that should not allowed to be hidden. The Canadian government did the same thing. Both this video and the exhibit in their small ways can shape the future and make it a better place. Thank you.

[@t3dwards13]

Beautiful. Thank you.

[@64ccd]

My sincere thanks to you guys for you making this video on such an important and shrouded topic of American history. (I also miss somedays at mirai with a passion). Keep making the world beautiful!

[@PatriciaOConnorBonsaiBalcony]

Hello, You know me. I am Patricia. Frida and I live in Alameda California next to the old now decommissioned Navy Base. The Asian influence here drove me to Bonsai. I would like to contact the City planners in Alameda and see if the old officer quarters which now sit abandoned could become an Asian cultural appreciation center it has some grounds and would make a lovely Asian Garden -Bonsai Garden. and the building would make for a nice welcome center. This video is a year old now and so is my idea as this is from where this idea came. I've just decided I'm going to try to do this and just see what happens, a year is long enough to daydream.

[@BonsaiMirai]

Appreciate the update, Patricia. Awesome to hear and I hope that works out! Let us know.

[@chasingthefish9042]

In 1976 the Japanese gave the USA 53 bonsai trees for the nations birthday. They also gave us 3,000 cherry blossom trees in 1912.

[@kenmahannah7509]

thank you for creating this tribute!

[@JimSullivan-wb3qj]

Grace and beauty in the face of hell and humiliation.

[@jacktaylor6190]

BRAVO for doing this video!

[@simonlam4543]

That’s very sad thing happen in Our country US

[@Maunkwew]

Good video .... i like

[@bonsaibob8253]

Thank you Ryan for a beautiful video. Everyone needs to watch this and remember ALL lives matter. All of us around this great world matter to each other.

[@dk2614]

I can't help but draw the comparison between the Nazi ghettos where the Jews were kept until they went to death camps and these Japanese Americans who went to the internment camps. How much fear did they deal with. The rumors of death camps were already talked about in America before we liberated the death camps. Beautiful that bonsai can represent the best during the worst of times.

[@tomaszwozniak4343]

Beautiful exhibition and important historical topic for us to remember and reflect upon but please leave current politics out of bonsai.

[@LessTalkMoreDelicious]

Bonsai came from Japan and China. Both Asian countries. They invented it. Please Respect that. Currently, Asians are getting attacked daily... much is not shown on mainstream news - recently, someone stabbed in the chest in Washington (killed), body dismembered in Indiana (killed), boy stabbed by another boy in Canada (killed), etc., etc, To ignore that fact, is highly disrespectful of the Bonsai art form and where it came from. You’ll probably never understand, because you’re not the one being targeted and you aren’t Asian.

[@t3dwards13]

That's the problem. Everyone wants to seperate things into their own tiny bubbles to escape reality rather than improve it.

[@tomaszwozniak4343]

@@t3dwards13 no, what is the problem is pushing a divisive political narrative into absolutely everything: entertainment, movies, comics, computer games and now bonsai. I am sorry but I don't want to have a conversation about BLM, defunding police and identity politics on a bonsai channel.

[@JacobFirlotte]

I wonder if mirai will recognize they are on stolen Indigenous land

[@Iosis6]

Literally one of the most worn out comments on the internet.

[@JacobFirlotte]

@@Iosis6 it’s literally not even close; maybe you can just say you hate natives instead of being so dismissive. Regardless, it must be so tough for you to hear about racism instead of experiencing it.