Los Angeles gets a joyful cultural homecoming this winter. The Japanese American National Museum, known as JANM, will reopen its newly renovated Pavilion in Little Tokyo on January 23, 2027, after closing on January 6, 2025 for a transformation that brings new galleries, new technology and a warmer welcome at 100 North Central Avenue.
The reopening’s inaugural special exhibition is a celebration in itself. Pictures of Belonging: Miki Hayakawa, Hisako Hibi, and Miné Okubo, on view January 23 through August 29, 2027, brings together more than eighty paintings and drawings by three trailblazing Japanese American women of the pre-World War II generation, seen together for the first time. Spanning eight decades and curated by Dr. ShiPu Wang, the acclaimed touring exhibition arrives at its final stop expanded with newly discovered work recently acquired by JANM and shown for the first time, plus a companion gallery honoring contemporaries such as Chiura Obata and Henry Sugimoto.
Downstairs, the all-new core exhibition In the Future We Call Now explores 160 years of Japanese American history from JANM’s collection of more than 160,000 artifacts, the largest of its kind in the world. Visitors will also find the publicly accessible Hirasaki National Resource Center, interactive StoryFiles conversations with survivors and veterans including George Takei, and the new Kosasa Education Center, whose classrooms serve more than 14,000 students each year.
JANM will be open Tuesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and until 8 p.m. on Fridays. Happy City News cannot think of a brighter way to start 2027 in Little Tokyo: a beloved museum, reimagined, opening its doors with art that insists everyone belongs in the American story.
Photo: Japanese American National Museum (Miki Hayakawa, One Afternoon, ca. 1935, New Mexico Museum of Art)
