[IHJ Artists’ Forum/Artist Talk & Performance]
Ritual Retention : Holding and Creating Tradition

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  • Thursday, July 25, 2019 7:00 pm

  • Venue: Iwasaki Koyata Memorial Hall, International House of Japan
  • Artist: Aya Rodriguez-Izumi (US-Japan Creative Artists Program Fellow)
  • Language: English (with consecutive interpretation)
  • Co-sponsored by the Japan-US Friendship Commission (JUSFC) 
  • Admission: Free (reservations required)

Aya Rodriguez-Izumi will weave and connect projects from her interdisciplinary practice which focuses on ritual, in its myriad and varied forms. She is interested in how common everyday activities and objects can take on a ritualistic significance. Rodriguez-Izumi will guide the audience through an overarching view of her work with a focus on the traditions of her Cuban/Puerto Rican and Okinawan heritage that inspire it. She approaches these ideas in a holistic way – installation, performance, sculpture, video and beyond are all utilized depending on the project’s needs. She aims to create a transformative environment and experience for the viewer, and with this in mind this forum will end with a Q&A and an interactive group engagement.

(Get Well Photo: Darnell Scott)

Aya Rodriguez-Izumi:
An interdisciplinary artist whose work deals with ideas of trauma, ritual and cultural identity. She has exhibited in group and solo shows at MoCADA, the Knockdown Center, El Museo del Barrio, and Rush Arts Gallery among many others. She was the Emma Bee Bernstein Fellow at A.I.R. Gallery in New York in 2018-2019, a Jerome Foundation Fellow at Franconia Sculpture Park in Minnesota and a 2018-2019 Recipient of the JUSFC Creative Artist Fellowship where she is continuing her long-term endeavor, Project: Iceberg. She was born in Okinawa, Japan, and grew up between that island and East Harlem, NY, where she currently lives and holds a studio. She graduated from Parsons the New School for Design with a BFA in 2009, The School of Visuals Arts with an MFA in 2017.

 

iamaya.com