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Beyond the Barbed Wire is a digital monument honoring Japanese Americans who resisted incarceration during WWII. Built with care and intention, the platform combines oral histories, multimedia storytelling, and an interactive map to preserve these narratives. It’s a space for remembrance, education, and ongoing engagement, ensuring these stories continue to shape our collective understanding.
Japanese American incarceration during WWII remains underrepresented in the national narrative. Friends of Minidoka asked us to create a digital platform that could preserve and share stories of resistance — past and future — while honoring their emotional weight. The goal: reshape the commemorative landscape and ensure these histories endure.
We created Beyond the Barbed Wire, an immersive digital platform designed to engage, educate, and endure. Through oral histories, multimedia storytelling, evocative animations, and an interactive monument map, we restored a sense of place to stories long overlooked. The project established 10 partnerships, gathered content from 70 institutions including the Smithsonian, and illuminated 40+ stories—featuring figures like Frank Abe and Gordon Hirabayashi.
This work sits at the intersection of memory and justice. Many WWII-era incarceration sites no longer exist — or were never marked to begin with. This platform acts as a digital monument, built not just to remember, but to reframe. It invites people across generations to engage with history that’s vital, visceral, and still unfolding.
AI voiceover was used for accessible audio descriptions.
