Announced at the recent annual meeting of the OHA, the Mason Multi-Media Awards recognize “outstanding oral history projects, collections, exhibits, and multimedia presentations for the public.”
According to Yolanda Hester, who chaired the committee that selected the winners and whose members included Barbara Truesdell and Max Peterson, “This year many exceptional projects were nominated, featuring the use of oral history across a variety of media platforms and applications, from art and film projects to exhibitions, both physical and virtual. The submissions reflected the broad spectrum of interests and research focuses of oral history work, with a spotlight on lesser-known histories.”
The winners, Hester added, were “three fantastic projects.” To showcase this public-facing and interactive work, Extra! invited each of the awardees to describe their projects:
From Roger Eardley-Pryor, Shanna Farrell, and Amanda Tewes:
The Japanese American Intergenerational Narratives Oral History Project is a multi-year project of nearly 100 hours of publicly accessible interviews with 23 survivors and descendants of the World War II-era mass incarceration of Japanese Americans. The project also includes a 4-episode podcast called “From Generation to Generation”: The Legacy of Japanese American Incarceration and graphic-narrative artwork. Both the podcast and graphic artwork are based on the interviews, illuminating themes across personal and family narratives. As interviewers, we (Roger Eardley-Pryor, Shanna Farrell, and Amanda Tewes) used trauma-informed practices and offered Healing Circles for participants to process their interview experience (without the interviewers present), led by a Japanese American psychotherapist who specializes in intergenerational trauma.
The goal of the project was to explore intergenerational trauma caused by the United States government’s incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II and, in the aftermath, possible pathways to healing for survivors and descendants. We wanted to document the legacy of this unjust history through interviews and intergenerational storytelling to bring the past to life for new generations of Americans. Since the first phase of this project, which focused on survivors and descendants of Manzanar in California and Topaz in Utah, its scope expanded to include stories from Heart Mountain in Wyoming and Tule Lake in California.
The initial project was funded by a generous grant from the National Park Service, the second was funded by the Takahashi Foundation, and we’re hoping to further the project with a third round of support from the NPS to include oral history workshops for the Japanese American community and develop curriculum for K-12 classrooms based on the interviews in the Oral History Center’s collection on Japanese American incarceration.
From Judith Raiskin:
Outliers and Outlaws: The Eugene Lesbian History Project is a public-facing, multi-platform, living monument to the rich and untold history of the lesbian community in Eugene, Oregon. In the 1960s-90s, this community produced innovative models for living that carved out generative artistic, social, and economic spaces—experiments that influenced the culture and politics of Eugene, its surrounding areas, the State of Oregon, and LGBTQ history. The digital exhibit Outliers and Outlaws is based on 83 one-to-two hour filmed oral histories of the lesbians, now in their 70s and 80s.
The project includes a digitized and transcribed oral history archive; a rich digital exhibit with twenty-three composite videos, contextual history, and digitized photos; a museum exhibit; and a documentary film. For the film, we welcome screening opportunities that you wish to create. Reach out to our Producer of Marketing and Distribution G. Chesler
All parts of the project seek to remedy the erasure of a crucial piece of LGBTQ history and foster intergenerational conversations about cultural heritage and marginalized identities.
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From Rachel F. Seidman:
I’m deeply grateful for the Mason Multi-Media Award from the Oral History Association. On opening night of my exhibition “To Live and Breathe: Women and Environmental Justice in Washington, D.C.,” I was moved by the joy that my interviewees—local environmental activists—felt as we welcomed audiences into the gallery space. To witness people reading their stories and their words, celebrating their achievements and recognizing their challenges brought tears and smiles in almost equal measure. Oral history gave us a way center women’s experiences, humanize the often-overwhelming narrative of environmental justice, and help visitors see the issues unfolding right here in their neighborhoods, in the nation’s capital. I’m proud to be a member of the OHA community and truly appreciate this recognition.
Smithsonian Sidedoor Podcast episode related to the exhibition.
The portal for submissions for next year’s Mason awards will open early in 2025. The deadline for entry is July 1, 2025.