[IHJ Artists’ Forum/Artist Talk]
Engaging Through the Threshold
- Tuesday, December 19, 7:00 pm
- Venue: Lecture Hall, International House of Japan
- Artist: Quynh Vantu (Architect; US-Japan Creative Artists Program Fellow)
- Language: English (with consecutive interpretation)
- Co-sponsored by the Japan-US Friendship Commission (JUSFC)
- Admission: Free (reservations required)
Trained and licensed as an architect, Quynh Vantu explores the relationship between buildings, space, and the body using dynamic architectural forms that bring about communication. Working between art and architecture, Vantu’s interdisciplinary practice is devoted to spatial experimentation and site specificity, drawing influences from the places she visits. Her work is inspired by American “southern hospitality” and its porch culture, as well as Japanese architectural features like the engawa, both of which act as transitional zones that blur the boundaries between inside and outside, subtly choreographing patterns of social interaction.
Photographs are courtesy of the artist.
[IHJ Artists’ Forum/Solo Performance]
Bend
- Wednesday, October 25, 7:00 pm
- Venue: Iwasaki Koyata Memorial Hall, International House of Japan
- Created and performed by Kimi Maeda (Theater Artist; US-Japan Creative Artists Program Fellow)
- Language: English (with Japanese subtitles)
- Co-sponsored by the Japan-US Friendship Commission (JUSFC)
- Admission: Free (reservations required)
Kimi Maeda’s solo performance, Bend, tells the true story of two men incarcerated in a Japanese American internment camp during World War II: Maeda’ s father, an Asian art historian who suffered from dementia at the end of his life, and the subject of his research, Isamu Noguchi. Weaving together live feed projections of sand drawings with archival footage from the 1940s, Maeda’s performance poses important questions about how the Japanese American internment camps will be remembered.
[All images are from previous performances of Bend]
[IHJ Artists’ Forum/Experiential Performance]
Optical Garden Tour
- Thursday, August 8, 6:00 pm
- Venue: B1 Room 4, International House of Japan
-
Artist: Elaine Buckholtz (Visual Artist/ Lighting Designer; US-Japan Creative Artists Program Fellow)
Guest: Floor van de Velde (Artist / Educator) - Language: English (with language support by Japanese staff)
- Seating: 24 (first-come first-served basis)
- Co-sponsored by the Japan-US Friendship Commission (JUSFC)
- Admission: Free (reservations closed)
Come experience a unique and individual immersion in the phenomenological world. Nighthouse Studio invites you to join us for The Optical Garden Tour. The Optical Garden Tour will focus on the subtleties of human perception, playing between the immateriality of light, color, and space; and the unique material and historical conditions of the gardens surrounding the International House of Japan. The Optical Garden Tour will make use of optical devices to allow the viewer a unique visual intervention that questions the notion of seeing in relation to the existing architectural site and landscape. The evening will conclude with an immersive audio score created especially for the garden by Floor van de Velde of Nighthouse Studio.
“The world is but thickened light.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
[IHJ Artists’ Forum/Artist Talk]
Spinning Night in Living Color: Light Installations by Elaine Buckholtz
- Friday, July 7, 7:00 pm
- Venue: Iwasaki Koyata Memorial Hall, International House of Japan
-
Artist: Elaine Buckholtz (Visual Artist/ Lighting Designer; US-Japan Creative Artists Program Fellow)
Guest: Fujimoto Takayuki (Artist / Lighting Designer) - Language: English (with consecutive interpretation)
- Co-sponsored by the Japan-US Friendship Commission (JUSFC)
- Admission: Free (reservations required)
Elaine Buckholtz will discuss her work, and the work of her collaborative Nighthouse Studio, which considers light and video via sculptural forms, digital prints, and architecture, and also through immersive environments and materials of perception. The composer Floor van de Velde from Nighthouse Studio will also be present to speak about the musical component of Nighthouse’s installation work. Buckholtz’s talk will conclude in a conversation with Mr. Fujimoto Takayuki, a core member of the legendary multi-medium artist collective Dumb Type.
[Upper left: 2015/Middle Sticks] [Upper right: 2011/My Hundred Year Old Whisky] [Bottom: 2016/Spinning Night In Living Color]
[IHJ Artists’ Forum/Screening]
Cocktail Party
- Friday, June 23, 2017, 7:00 pm
- Venue: Iwasaki Koyata Memorial Hall, International House of Japan
-
Artist: Regge Life (Director of Struggle and Success, Doubles, and Live Your Dream; 1990 US-Japan Creative Artists Program Fellow)
- Language: English (with Japanese subtitles)
- Co-sponsored by the Japan-US Friendship Commission (JUSFC)
- Admission: Free (reservations required)
Cocktail Party is inspired by Oshiro Tatsuhiro’s 1967 novel, the first Akutagawa-prize winner for an Okinawa writer. Regge Life gives a sensitive treatment of the complicated human relationships that entangle Americans, Japanese, and the Okinawa people. Life will participate in a post-screening talk.
[Reviews]
In Cocktail Party, writer-director Regge Life takes on the controversial subject of the American military presence on Okinawa and renders it powerful and personal. The essence of effective historical drama is to translate large geopolitical abstractions into concrete human interactions—and that is exactly what Cocktail Party does. US-Japan relations, racial tensions, military presence in civil society, violence and rape, guilt and innocence, justice and injustice, truth and deception … all these forces come into play in this compelling new film.
—Peter Grilli, Japan Society of Boston
Cocktail Party features superb acting, an intriguing plot, and an informative portrayal of the social conditions on Okinawa that have complicated US and Japanese relations for decades. Scenes and conversations throughout the film are deeply personal, touching, and give the film an unusual strength that draws in the viewer. The impact is immediate and the questions raised are numerous.
—David Huebner, Education About Asia
Official Movie Site:www.cocktailpartythemovie.com
[IHJ Artists’ Forum/Reading]
Between Flame and Flight
- Date: Thursday, April 13, 2017, 7:00 pm
- Venue: Lecture Hall, International House of Japan
- Artist: Jami Nakamura Lin (Writer; US-Japan Creative Artists Program Fellow)
- Language: English (with consecutive interpretation; original texts or translation will be provided)
- Co-sponsored by the Japan-US Friendship Commission (JUSFC)
- Admission: Free (reservations required)
Chicago-based writer Jami Nakamura Lin, whose work merges themes of ethnic identity, faith, and mental illness, will share an excerpt from her novel-in-progress The Sin-Eaters―a book that incorporates aspects of Japanese folk tales and religion. In addition, she will read an essay addressing her grandfather’s experience in a WWII internment camp, and the ways in which this informs her understanding of America today.
- Artist’s website: jaminakamuralin.com
Illustration: Cori Lin