Monday, November 30, 2015

Help us bring Filipino Fusions: A Critical Cookbook to print!

 Help my friend and fellow Chicago artist Kiam Marcelo Junio bring this fabulous cookbook to print. I'm really honored to have been able to contribute a recipe for this project. While most of Kiam's recipes are vegan versions of Filipino classics,  I shared a much less healthy family recipe for Spam Musubi :-)

Check out Kiam's Indiegogo campaign for Filipino Fusions: A Critical Cookbook
Order now and you can get the book by Christmas!


From https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/filipino-fusions-the-cookbook#/gallery

Inside the Artist’s Kitchen is an online arts journal that documents artists making work in the Chicago, IL community. Over the course of our investigations, it became evident that there was an opportunity to provide a new, easily accessible platform to support artists in creating new work.  We launched our Digital Residency program in the Summer of 2014.
Our first resident, Kiam Marcelo Junio, has spent the past year exploring Filipino identity in a web series called Filipino Fusions. In the cooking show, Kiam’s alter ego Jerry Blossom demonstrates a vegan take on Filipino cuisine while discussing Filipino history and culture.
(Watch Filipino Fusions here!)

As a capstone project, we are wrapping finishing touches on Filipino Fusions: a Critical Cookbook, an artist’s cookbook that will serve as a culmination of Kiam’s work during the Digital Residency. The book will have delicious recipes featured in Filipino Fusions, and will include additional content exploring themes of colonization, migration, occupation and diaspora, expanding topics brought up over the course of the web series.

The Impact

Filipino Fusions: A Critical Cookbook is more than a collection of recipes; it includes poetry, essays, interviews, and contributions by other artists who, in their own practices, consider shared themes of diaspora and cross cultural identity.
Contributing Artists:
- Aldrin Valdez, artist and writer, New York City, USA.
- Laura Kina, artist and teacher, Chicago, USA
- Annie Ai Nhi Le - Moussou, artist and teacher, Angers, France.
- Jonathan Sommer, with B!tCH3Z Drinking Project, Chicago, USA
The book is written, designed, and produced with love, care and attention. It is intended for practical use, to bring cultural conversations to tables around the world. The critical cookbook format contextualizes the recipes in personal, historical, and contemporary narratives.  The book allows openness to adaptation (of recipes and of identities) while recognizing tradition and history. 

What We Need & What You Get

  • WHAT WE NEED:
    Estimated printing costs at $3,500. These funds will go towards getting our books printed and affording us locally hand-bound book covers (approx $2000). $150-$200 is for an ISBN / barcode for the book, $300-$500 is for photography, $300-$500 for Licensing our fonts and images and anything else is a buffer for the bumps along the way. Anything we get will be seriously helpful towards the making of this wonderful book.
  • What you get:
    a chance to own a  hardbound copy of Filipino Fusions: A Critical Cookbook (or a pdf of the book), and other wonderful rewards, including original art by Kiam Marcelo Junio and local Chicago artists (TBA!).

Thursday, October 8, 2015

Save the date - Osamu James Nakagawa is coming to DePaul Nov 4th

Save the date - Nov 4, 2015 renowned Japanese photographer Osamu James Nakagawa will be speaking at the DePaul University Art Museum about the development of his work and experiences on the island of Okinawa, Japan.

Okinawa Stories - 70 Arduous Years in the Pacific

Osamu James Nakagawa

DePaul University Art Museum
935 W. Fullerton 2nd floor
Chicago, IL 60614

Spurred on by the news that Japanese high school history textbooks would exclude the Japanese army's involvement in the atrocities of the Battle of Okinawa, Nakagawa embarked on a journey into the caves of the island to photograph an untold and obscured history through significant historical sites.

This event is free and open to the public.

Organized in conjunction with my DePaul Okinawa, Japan study abroad course "Okinawa, Art, Politics and Economy," this event is sponsored by the Center for Intercultural Programs and co-sponsored by Global Asian Studies and Japanese Studies.

For more info: https://www.facebook.com/events/1493197224308257/

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

LA's Downtown News lists Sugar/Islands as #1 their "Don't Miss List"

Laura Kina "Okinawa - All American Food," oil on canvas, 30 x 45 in., 2013

The Los Angeles Downtown News has listed "Sugar/Islands: Finding Okinawa in Hawai'i - the Art of Laura Kina and Emily Hanako Momohara" as #1 on their "Don't Miss List" for exhibitions to see during this final week of summer.

Be sure to stop by the Japanese American National Museum before our show closes on Sept 6, 2015 located at 100 N. Central Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90012.
Check janm.org/visit for hours and admission fees

Monday, August 31, 2015

From Okinawa to Hawaii and Back Again: What It Means to Be American

 

Read my short essay "From Okinawa to Hawaii and Back Again: What It Means to Be American." The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History and Zocalo Public Square invited me to write a piece inspired by one of my paintings in the exhibition "Sugar/Islands: Finding Okinawa in Hawai'i - the art of Laura Kina and Emily Hanako Momohara" on view through Sept 6, 2015 at the Japanese American National Museum.

http://www.whatitmeanstobeamerican.org/journeys/from-okinawa-to-hawaii-and-back-again/

Saturday, August 29, 2015

Press coverage for "Sugar/Islands" - on view @JANM through Sept 6, 2015





Check out the press coverage so far for "Sugar/Islands: Finding Okinawa in Hawai'i - the Art of Laura Kina and Emily Hanako Momohara," curated by Krystal Hauseur, on view now through Sept 6, 2015 at the Japanese American National Museum.

Press:

Alexis Miyake, "The Secret History of Hajichi," First & Central: The JANM Blog, August 27, 2015.

"Okinawa Days at JANM," Rafu Shimpo, July 21, 2015, Life and Arts p. 1 and 4.

Heidi Kulicke, "A Double Shot In Little Tokyo: Stories of War and Island Heritage Are Highlighted in a Pair of JANM Exhibits," Downtown News, July 20, 2015, p. 14.

Darryl Mori, "Q&A with Sugar/Islands Artist Laura Kina," Discover Nikkei, July 16, 2015. Reprinted in Rafu Shimpo July 22, 2015 p. 3.

Michelle Mills, "New Japanese American National Museum shows traverse Japanese-American journey to truth," San Gabriel Valley Tribune, July 8, 2015.
Reprinted on July 10, 2015 in:
Los Angeles Daily News
Long Beach Press-Telegram
Torrance Daily Breeze
Pasadena Star-News
Whittier Daily News
San Gabriel Valley Tribune
San Bernardino Sun
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
Redlands Daily Facts


"Two New Exhibitions to Open at JANM," Rafu Shimpo, July 9, 2015.

Darryl Mori, "Making Art That Matters: Sugar/Islands and Stories of Hawai'i's History," Discover Nikkei, July 7, 2015.

Allyson Nakamoto, "New Exhibition Touches on Okinawan History," First & Central: The JANM Blog, June 30, 2015.

Saturday, July 18, 2015

Video, photos, press, and book for Sugar/Islands: Finding Okinawa in Hawai'i - the Art of Laura Kina and Emily Hanako Momohara


Sugar/Islands: Finding Okinawa in Hawaii - the art of Laura Kina and Emily Hanako Momohara
curated by Krystal Hauseur
opened on July 11th and will be on view through Sept 6, 2015 at the
Japanese American National Museum
100 N. Central Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90012

Artists Emily Hanako Momohara and Laura Kina with curator Krystal Hauseur
The Japanese American National Museum
Laura's family at the opening of Sugar/Islands
After the July 12, 2015 tour and book signing - Bear River Press publisher Cindy Kumagawa, artist Laura Kina, JANM VP of Programs Koji Sakai, curator Krystal Hauseur, and artist Emily Hanako Momohara.
Installation view - from JANM's facebook album.
Krystal, Laura, and Emily at the July 11th panel discussion - from JANM's facebook album.

Visitors touring the exhibition - from JANM's facebook album.

View more of Laura's snapshots from the opening
View JANM's photos from the opening
View JANM's photos from the Free Family Fun Day: Okinawa Traditions


Watch the Sugar/Islands video.
Paintings by Laura Kina and photographs by Emily Hanako Momohara explore the artists’ mixed-heritage roots in Okinawa and Hawai‘i, employing unique strategies that blend fiction and reality to question the stability of memory and identity. In this video, they discuss their families, identity, and their art.

Buy the book
In conjunction with the exhibition, Bear River Press has published a 50-page exhibition catalog with a foreword written by G.W. Kimura, curatorial essay by Krystal Hauseur, an invited essay by Margo Machida, an interview with the artists, and full color reproductions of all of the images in the show. $24 ISBN -13: 978-0-9768528-2-7; ISBN: 0-768528-2-9. The book is now available to purchase online via Bear River Press or by email: Cindy Kumagawa ckumagawa@verizon.net
Download the book order form.
Or buy the book from the JANM bookstore or online, as well as related books, from the JANM bookstore.


Press:
Heidi Kulicke, "A Double Shot In Little Tokyo: Stories of War and Island Heritage Are Highlighted in a Pair of JANM Exhibits," Downtown News, July 20, 2015, p. 14.
 
Darryl Mori, "Q&A with Sugar/Islands Artist Laura Kina," Discover Nikkei, July 16, 2015.

Michelle Mills, "New Japanese American National Museum shows traverse Japanese-American journey to truth," San Gabriel Valley Tribune, July 8, 2015.
Reprinted on July 10, 2015 in:
Los Angeles Daily News
Long Beach Press-Telegram
Torrance Daily Breeze
Pasadena Star-News
Whittier Daily News
San Gabriel Valley Tribune
San Bernardino Sun
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
Redlands Daily Facts


"Two New Exhibitions to Open at JANM," Rafu Shimpo, July 9, 2015.

Darryl Mori, "Making Art That Matters: Sugar/Islands and Stories of Hawai'i's History," Discover Nikkei, July 7, 2015.

Allyson Nakamoto, "New Exhibition Touches on Okinawan History," First & Central: The JANM Blog, June 30, 2015.