During World War II, over 42,000 Japanese migrants and 70,000 U.S. citizens of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast of the United States were sent to incarceration camps. Among them were ordained Baptist pastors and their congregations, numbering about 2000, who would hold on to their faith as they struggled to understand and find hope in their experience.

This exhibit, A Resilient Faith, funded, in part, by a grant from the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program, presents work the American Baptist Historical Society has done since 2023 to digitize records related to this history and provide educational resources for scholars, congregations, and members of the public. It premiered at the Biennial Mission Summit in Omaha, Nebraska, and is currently traveling to conferences around the country.

For the design, I used Obviously, a typeface with 96 weights ranging from Compressed Thin to Extended Super. I was initially drawn to a thin, geometric sans serif to evoke the uniformity and fragile impermanence of the barracks. This sensibility guided a highly gridded layout, disrupted by large-scale images of people. The other type weights, with their flared strokes and asymmetrical curves, offered a way to express the creativity, spirituality, and vitality that persisted within these communities.

This project was created in collaboration with the ABHS archive department, and content developer Julie Govert