The Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre will be presenting three programming during the Nuit Blanche festival featuring three Japanese Canadian artist and one Japanese Brazilian artist: Maari Sugawara, Annie Sumi, Brian Kobayakawa, and Erica Kaminishi. These artworks/exhibits are curated to revolve around concept of the exploration of Nikkei (Japanese Diaspora)’s identities by transnational artists who experience multiple levels of shifting communal memories and identities as well as contingent national identifications.

Schedule

Maru: Immigration Stories Exhibit Tours

Oct 1: 7:30 PM, 9:30 PM, 11:30 PM 

For more information, click here. Self-guided audio tour also available. 

Artist Talk: Maari Sugawara

Oct 1: 8:30 PM, 10:30 PM

Other exhibits available for viewing - 7pm - 7 am

• Place of Pride
• Women of Change

Algorithms of Innocence by Maari Sugawara - 7pm - 7am

JCCC Gallery's featured artist for Nuit Blanche this Fall, Maari Sugawara will exhibit a series of immersive audio and video installations entitled, "Algorithms of Innocence". Employing a wide range of mediums such as VR, animation, videography, and stock materials, Maari problematizes aspects of Japanese national and cultural identity and encourages a departure from traditional categories of difference. 

Kintsugi by Annie Sumi and Brian Kobayakawa - 7pm - 7am

An anti-racist, interactive, multi-disciplinary, art installation, ‘Kintsugi’ reflects on racial identity, healing ancestral trauma, and the fragmented history of the Japanese Canadian internment. Created with the help of shadow-puppeteer duo Mind of a Snail, the projections are an overlapping collage of landscape video footage, cut-up old letters written by the artists’ ancestors, and playful animations. All of the pieces of this installation are site-specific. Two of the featured videos are present-day footage of the places where internment camps were built during WWII - one where Kobayakawa’s father was born, and the other where Sumi’s grandfather spent his youth.

All in one, one in All no 1 by Erica Kaminishi - 7pm - 7am

Maru: Immigration Stories focused on stories of the Japanese diaspora in the Americas and also features an interactive art installation by Japanese Brazilian artist Erica Kaminishi. Kaminishi is a third-generation Japanese Brazilian artist born in Brazil and in the past two decades, she moved between three continents. In this climate of globalization, Kaminishi’s works have internalized and explored topics relating to transnational migrations focused on notions of identities, generational communal memories, cosmopolitanism, and belonging. All in one, one in All no 1 is an installation that expands beyond its limits and playfully mixes creeds and colors in a unique collective life-art project. However, despite the concept of unity in diversity, it also brings reflections concerning our relationship with each other and the space we inhabit. This installation is a project that brings the public to its visual landscape, inviting them to build a place of reflection, living memory, and fluid identities. 

INDEPENDENT PROJECT

Ichigo-Ichie 一期一会: One Time - One Meeting by Helen Kong (Secret Teatime)

Helen Kong, the owner of Secret Teatime, is a ceramicist and tea practitioner. She gathers fellow artists (Justine Wong, Sabrina Tu, and Mika Sato), makers (Satoshi Yoshikawa), designers (Makeshift Collective), tea practitioners (Momo Yoshida and Susanna Sun), and local small business owners to come together with their passion and artistry to create a multi-sensory art installation and tea event for the Toronto public. Participants will be guided through one of three tea rooms: a Japanese, Taiwanese, or Chinese tea space for either a personalized experience or self-guided exploration of tea and spirituality. RSVP online prior to event for limited spots in the Japanese and Taiwanese tearoom (follow Ichigo-Ichie to know when RSVP will be available). Drop-in and rush line opportunities will also be available.