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SY: So, speaking of museums, so from the time after redress, then I guess the next project I have you on this list that I have is a museum project. So in the interim, between Conversations: Before/After the War, you were saying that at some point you were planning to retire?

RN: Yeah, 'cause I was, I wasn't being, I wasn't very satisfied -- I don't know if I had the idea of retiring then, I just was getting tired of teaching there. So I took a, what turned out to be a three-year leave of absence and worked at the museum. 'Cause I was there early on when Nancy was the director.

SY: Volunteering, kind of.

RN: Yeah, we weren't even in the temple yet, we were on Fourth Street somewhere.

SY: So you were one of the earliest?

RN: I was involved with the museum, in and out of... but then later as the museum really, were going to move into the temple, not the pavilion, I began to want to put an archive together there. I thought this was a good chance, and it would be focused, easier with JAs instead of Asian Americans. And so Karen and I kind of wanted to come on board and essentially establish a media arm of the museum, and something that hopefully the museum would be maybe more media-oriented than a lot of the other museums where in many cases they focus on artifacts. So I kind of pitched that to Irene, that might build it if the media could be, come in at the beginning of the concept of whatever they're doing as opposed to later, having curators say, "We need something here and there." So came up with the idea of having Media Arts Center who could work directly with curators and be part of that idea, system.

SY: So then when you say you came up with it when the museum was in its formative period, was it right when...

RN: At first it was just the archive, and then as, then Karen and I did a... off of the archival work we did a couple pieces, the three screen using home movies, I forgot what we called it.

SY: Through Our Own Eyes?

RN: Through Our Own Eyes was a three screen, and we saw the kind of impact that it had on people who came in because they'd go to our piece first and then they'd wander through the artifacts. At first, 'cause it was curator driven, they said, "We'll have it running all the time and people can stand and watch," which kind of pissed me off. So we said, "Fine." And then later people would just stand there and watch the whole thing, 'cause according to curator lore, people will only watch a moving image for three minutes and they'll move on, which is totally... anyway, so they were able to, we had to put in benches after a while. So I think everyone began to realize that this is, we need this, especially for the museum where we want to see ourselves as we were in the past and not just look at artifacts.

SY: So at the museum over the years, you were there three years, did you say?

RN: I think so, yeah. Can I look? 1997...

SY: I have 1992 was Through Our Own Eyes. Living Memories was 1992. Might have been longer.

RN: Yeah, yeah.

SY: It was probably a little longer than three years.

RN: I warned you about dates. But anyway, the evolution of, thinking back behind the Media Arts Center was first the archives, then we began to present the materials we developed with the archives, and could really see the audience reacting, I think more emotionally, 'cause film media, video, that's more an emotional response. If you're looking at an artifact, that's more intellectual, oh, yeah, this is what...

SY: But the way it seems that it developed was you initiated your own films at the museum that were not necessarily related.

RN: Oh, I'm sorry, yeah. That was the other part of it is that not only would we be working with exhibits, but we could do our own productions. I'm sorry, that was... that we could do our own productions, especially... and that was good in three different ways. One is we can document all the outtakes, all the interviews -- you know, we only use like a little bit of, in making the film, and the rest, what we call outtakes are really archive material. So I thought it was a win-win situation. We could do the production and all the other research, the tons of interviewing we do that go into a film, that becomes our archive also. So that was what Media Arts Center was... that's when we had a lot of money, huh, Akira? [Laughs]

SY: You got to raise some of it yourself, though, I would think.

<End Segment 32> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.