Haunted Healing: Horror Film, Poetry & Art | The Presidio

Submitted by the Event Organizer

Traces of America’s dark history still haunt us today. Join us as we confront this haunting through art and conversation. The program will feature a screening of Daryn Wakasa’s short horror film, SEPPUKU (2017), which treats the lingering effects of the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans as a form of intergenerational haunting. Poet Melissa Bennett will share writing that explores the painful resonances of the boarding school and mental health systems that separate Native people from their culture, home land, language, faith, family, and community. Wakasa and Bennett will then discuss their work in conversation, exploring overlaps in Japanese American and Indigenous history, and creative possibilities for healing in community, moderated by Natasha Varner, PhD. This event will be followed by a short convivial gathering in order to create additional space for conversation and connection.

This program is held in conjunction with “Then They Came For Me: Incarceration of Japanese Americans During WWII and the Demise of Civil Liberties,” a special multimedia exhibit featuring imagery by noted photographers commissioned by the U.S. government’s War Relocation Authority, including Dorothea Lange, Clem Albers, along with photographers Ansel Adams, Toyo Miyatake and Paul Kitagaki, Jr.

Disclaimer: Please double check event information with the event organizer as events can be canceled, details can change after they are added to our calendar, and errors do occur.