Artist in Residence: Alison Kobayashi
If you’re wandering the halls of the JCCC this July, come by the gallery. If you’re lucky, you might see artist Alison Kobayashi developing work for presentation later this year. Kobayashi will be in residence at the JCCC Gallery during July, prototyping work for her project, Electric Neon Clock.
Electric Neon Clock is an installation and live, performed documentary that adapts Kobyashi’s great-grandfather's custodial case file, documents which detail the dispossession and internment of the artist’s family. These violent records are blended with family interviews, sound, video, and archival photos, as Kobayashi asks the audience to participate in interpreting and undermining their original intention.
Electric Neon Clock will be on view at the Art Gallery of Mississauga, from August to October 2026, but visitors to the JCCC will have a chance to see the artist at work during the month of July and attend two open studio days:
- July 11th | 4-5 PM | Part of Natsu Matsuri Programming
- July 26th | 2-4 PM
A.S.M. Kobayashi @asmkobayashi is an award-winning interdisciplinary artist whose hybrid, interactive work mixes documentary and fiction through video, performance, installation, and illustration. Her critically acclaimed performance, Say Something Bunny!, based on found audio recordings, was heralded as "The best new theater experience in town" by Vogue and a NYTimes critics’ pick. Additionally, SSB! was listed in Time Out’s 2017 top ten productions and BOMB’s Best of Performance in 2018. She is based in New York City and Toronto where she is producing her documentary performance Electric Neon Clock.
1) A.S.M. Kobayashi performing at Lincoln Centre for the Arts. Photo by Erin Patrice O'Brien, © Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
2) Still from Kobayashi's film Case No.2304. Courtesy of the artist.