Coming Soon!! Exhibition Don't Ask Me Where I am From will be shown at the Art Gallery of Alberta in Canada.

"A groundbreaking traveling exhibition of works by second-generation immigrant artists, who explore the dynamics of living between different cultures and the hybrid identities they lead. 

The exhibition has been jointly created by Fondazione Imago Mundi and the Aga Khan Museum. With the rise of immigration as a political issue throughout the world, this project examines the challenges and creativity of a generation that bridges the cultures of their home country and those of their parents. It features works by 15 artists whose stories trace immigration, settlement and integration across the world. 

Organized in partnership with The Aga Khan Museum and Fondazione Imago Mundi. Presented at the Art Gallery of Alberta with the support of the Edmonton Community Foundation."

From April 9 –June 19, 2022

What's new at the JCCC in 2022!

The permanent participatory artwork All in One, One in All No.01 was released last year at JCCC! The artwork is part of the permanent exhibition, Maru: Immigration Stories at The Moriyama Nikkei Heritage Centre (MNHC). In 2020, the JCCC commissioned Erica Kaminishi for a participatory art installation that explores the theme of immigration, culture, and identity with the title All in one, one in All No. 01. The curator Su Yen Chong explains about it in this video (from 12:44)

Read also a short interview about All in One, One in All No.01

"All in one, one in All brings references of Zen Buddhism, precisely from concepts of inter-being by the monk Thich Nhat Hanh. One of the inter-being principles is “We do not exist independently. We inter-are. Everything relies on everything else in the cosmos in order to manifest — whether a star, a cloud, a flower, a tree, or you and me.”

This project specially planned and elaborated for the JCCC is related to my participatory art projects that have already been exhibited in Japan and in Brazil.

For this project, I planned a large-scale white cloud whose contours allude to a topographic map with its contour lines. Those elements are also present in my other works. The public will be invited to participate in the creative process by drawing and writing with blue pen on white sticky notes in droplets shapes. Then, the filled in sticky notes will be fixed on the surface of the large map-cloud, which at the end will be full of blue droplets.

It is a way of reflecting on how everything is interrelated: the cloud is not formed with just a drop of water. Just as we need each other to build something relevant in this world, we must also think that everything coexists within a natural cycle and we need to take care of. From a simple rain, the earth has enough nutrients for a tree to grow and bear fruit and raw material for us to manufacture the paper, on which we draw…. "

Cnidarian Poiesis series is featured on the project TerraForms of the Fondazione Imago Mundi

TerraForms is an online initiative that displays in rotation on the homepage of Imago Mundi Collection artistic or graphic artworks that present attempts and hypotheses to map the world.

The exhibited works deal with the map not in a strictly cartographic sense, but propose an ideal vision of the world, total or partial, with its stories of conflict and beauty, diversity and richness, in order to present a global and heterogeneous visions of planet earth with all its various nuances.

Stay tuned!! UAAC-AAUC Online Conference 2021

Archeology of Memory and Identity of the Japanese Diaspora: A Look into the Artistic Practice of Erica Kaminishi by Su Yen Chong, Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre

In the early 20th century, Japan was experiencing an intensified socio-economic downturn. In 1923, the Great Kanto earthquake devastated the Tokyo-Yokohama metropolitan centre leaving millions of people homeless. This prompted a national emigration policy to Latin America, which was still suffering from a void in low-cost labour following the termination of the African slave trade. Today, over 2.19 million individuals identify as Nikkei or being part of the Japanese diaspora reside in Latin America, with the population primarily concentrated in Brazil. Among their many experiences, World War II is embedded in the memories of many Nikkei communities whose lives were devastated because of the war. During this period, the questions of nationalism, loyalty, and ethnicity were brought to the forefront as the Nikkei communities underwent persecution by various governmental bodies. The contemporary identification of being part of the global Nikkei community has brought about a surge of rediscovery of commonality in history, culture, and communal memories.

The topic of this paper addresses issues of identity and belonging faced by the Nikkei communities in Latin America through the artistic practice of Erica Kaminishi with a focus on participatory art installation. Kaminishi, a third-generation Japanese Brazilian, was born and raised in Brazil, and in the past two decades, she moved between three continents (South America, Asia, and Europe).

JAPANESE ART TRADITIONS IN BRAZILIAN CONTEXTS WITH MICHIKO OKANO

Prof. Ph.D. Michiko Okano presented my works in the lecture about Japanese Art Traditions in Brazil held at the Clark Art Institute.

"This lecture presents an overview of Japanese-Brazilian, or Nikkei artists, in three sections. First, Michiko Okano discusses the brief history of Japanese immigration to Brazil. Second, Okano shares some places where one can appreciate Japanese traditional architecture and culture, and finally, Okano goes more in depth in an exploration of Japanese Brazilian artists. This last section aims to present the panoramic view of art relating to Japanese tradition in Brazil, its uniqueness, and diversity beginning from the first immigrants until the third-generation descendants."

Stay tuned! Lugar InComum (UnCommon Place) digital book launch!

We invite you to the launch of the digital book Lugar InComum, which will take place on June 23th (Wednesday), at 7:30 pm Brasilia time, in a live talk on YouTube between the artists and the project’s curator.

The publication brings together works by Erica Kaminishi, Julia Ishida and Sandra Hiromoto. In their work, the visual artists approach themes such as landscape, memory, identity and emptiness using different techniques. The book presents the work of each artist in a retrospective of productions made between 2013 and 2021.

The curatorship and introductory text are by Rosemeire Odahara Graça and the preface by Denise Bandeira, professors at the State University of Paraná (Unespar).The edition will be bilingual and will feature accessibility features, such as audio description.

Great to see my work featured on the MIA Art Collection Virtual Museum! 
Exhibition "The Great Female Wave"

"From the earliest period of history of the arts, European contact with the East world and imagery has provided a new a cultural wave of new techniques, but too often their contributions have only been looked to their male counterparts, as galleries and art historians usually focus on them, but in MIA Anywhere virtual museum, we are highlighting the female point of view through a selection of four Asian artists: two from Japan, one from Indonesia and one from Pakistan. Their work is diverse, dynamic and stand above the test of their male contemporaries without question. They are all innovators, feminist and all have a unique point of view and a fabulous technique in their creative field: Meet Zainab Mehmood (@zainabmehmood5201) from Pakistan, Tiarma Sirait (@tiarmasirait) from Indonesia, Sayaka Asai (@lllllsalllll) from Japan and Erica Kaminishi (@ericakaminishi) Japanese-Brazilian artist."

Short video about my creation process between Brazilian and Japanese Culture.  Subtitles in English.

Artist talk (in Portuguese) with prof. Nelson Silva Junior, coordinator of Visual Arts department at Ponta Grossa State University (UEPG), Parana State, for Grimpa Group - Permanent space for production in Visual Arts at UEPG.

Group Exhibition Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From
Aga Khan Museum - Toronto Canada
Feb 25, 2020 - Oct 11, 2020

Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From channels the second-generation experience in a series of diverse artistic commissions and loans exploring cross-cultural artistic realities. The exhibition opens at Imago Mundi’s Gallerie delle Prigioni in Treviso, Italy, in November 2019, and has its North American premiere at the Aga Khan Museum in March 2020, before travelling to venues across Canada, the United States, Europe, and the Middle East.

Check out the lecture of the exhibition with co-curator Marianne Fenton!