9066 is a video collage that examines how history is rewritten and reinterpreted over time. The title refers to Executive Order 9066, which led to the forced incarceration of Japanese Americans in concentration camps during World War II. In 2024, whistleblowers revealed that the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) had been quietly removing references to this internment from educational materials and exhibitions. This erasure, subtle but deliberate, was the catalyst for this work.

As a descendant of survivors, I have always felt the weight of this history. My grandparents spent years behind barbed wire, and while their experience was one of fear and disillusionment, much of the surviving imagery presents an unsettlingly polished version of the camps—scenes that, over time, risk distorting the reality of what happened. In response, I began collecting archival materials from NARA, reworking them using generative AI and TouchDesigner to uncover new layers within these historical records. The video's sound is built from recordings of a machine producing barbed wire, an object that defined my grandparents’ incarceration and remains a symbol of confinement.

9066 is an attempt to make this history tangible again, to disrupt the romanticized narratives, and to resist the quiet erasure of the past.