some thoughts on photography
2023-01-02

i remember when i finally came to understand what “photography” was. it wasn’t a decisive moment or anything, but a slow and gradual realization that beyond the artificially constructed moments of “say cheese!” and the glossy rectangle images that came out of them was the potential for a long-term action; what you might call a hobby, creative expression, practice, etc. the camera wasn’t just something parents used, obnoxiously and clumsily, as an archival tool, one that laid dormant outside of special, social moments. it could also be intimate, organic, introspective, individual, challenging. in middle school i remember scrolling through photography websites for hours, reading about ISO and shutter speed and manuals for cameras i didn't own, doing "photoshoots" with my friends (aka taking pics at the playground or the park), hogging up SD cards with macro shots of flowers.i never really grew into my identity as a photographer. i was a kid with no money, then the iphone was released, and by the time i realised it everyone was a photographer. definitions changed, mediums changed, the things we valued changed. the photo became ubiquitous, something everyone, myself included, took for granted, because it was instantaneous, unlimited, "free", took up no physical space, needed no time to submit, develop, pick up, pay for, and organize. photography was democratized, and photography was normalized.i ended up losing most of the photos i took as a teen because i had thoughtlessly believed that digital storage was invincible and eternal. since then, and more intensely each year, i’ve been questioning my relationship to the photo (and to the permanence of the digital realm in general, although that's a different topic). what are my reasons for taking photos? how do culture and technology shape my relationship to photography? what are the power structures within the process of photo-taking? how do different mediums and platforms for photography determine my interactions with the world? and so on.in any case, i’ve been taking mediocre film photos regularly since 2017 as a part of my hobby-exploration of the medium. here are some of my favorite photos of friends and family that i've taken over the years.

Music of the Hawaiian Renaissance:
Cultural Revival in the 70s and 80s
2014-10-9

*This is an extremely old piece that I wrote when I was in school (!) but that has always had a dear place in my heart. I'll give it a proper makeover someday...

Like many other indigenous cultures colonialized by the West, the traditional music of the Hawaiians has seen the trials of suppression, stereotype, bastardization, and appropriation. In turn, new instruments and musical elements introduced from the West were incorporated by the Hawaiians into their music. As the Hawaiian political and cultural climate went through many rapid changes under Western influence, so too did the music. From the moment captain James Cook stepped on the island in 1778, there was continuous pressure for the culture and consequently the music to Westernize.In the early 1970s, however, the availability of recording technology allowed something to happen that would cause a turn of events in the history of Hawaiian music-- locals were able to establish their own small recording studios. This Hawaiian Renaissance that began in the 70s saw a sudden flare of locally created and recorded music that, now without the restrictions of Western mainstream demands, allowed local musicians to return to traditional roots and create a new style of music that displayed cultural pride and praised their homeland, broadcasted their political beliefs, and sought to entertain not only a white audience but a local audience as well.Hawaiian history has been one of struggle and resistance, and it is important to understand this to understand the music. With the first wave of colonialism, a swift and intolerant system of suppression was implemented. The traditional chants and hula of the Hawaiian people, which were an integral part of maintaining religious beliefs and political social structure, were banned (Burke 44).In the 19th century, the gradual incorporation of Western elements of music is seen in the adoption of the ukulele, the slack-key guitar, and the steel guitar, which the Hawaiians learned to play from the Mexican, Spanish, and Portugese. While there was a short but important period of cultural revival in the late 1800s, it ended with the overthrow of Queen Liluokalani and was replaced with the influence of the tourism industry. The 1920s and 30s saw the formation of hapa haole music (literally “half white” music), which was pop music that combined Hawaiian words and themes with mainland music styles (174).The music of the Hawaiian Renaissance in the 70s draws on all of these stages of musical progression. With the lowering costs and rising availability of recording equipment, local labels and artists began to experience more freedom. They brought back traditional Hawaiian elements and fused them with elements of hapa haole music, including Western genres like folk, rock and country.Arguably one of the most important elements of 70s music was the content of the songs— the lyrics were no longer littered with shallow racial stereotypes written by white people to perpetuate the tourist’s image of the friendly or exotic Hawaiian (such as American entertainer Al Jolson’s song, Yaaka Hula Hickey Dula, a song about a beautiful “hula maiden.” The song is interspersed with the nonsense words “yaaka hula hickey dula.”) (177). The new lyrics, written by locals, were sometimes fully in the Hawaiian language. The songs praised the beauty of the island and the pride of its people. This created a brand new form of Hawaiian music that was no longer motivated by the American market, but by the need to define and proclaim cultural identity (119).George Kanahele, the founder of the Hawaiian Music Foundation and the one who coined the term ‘Hawaiian Renaissance,’ stated in his 1977 speech that “What is happening among Hawaiians today is probably the most significant chapter in their modern history since the overthrow of the monarchy and loss of nationhood in 1893. For, concomitant with this cultural rebirth, is a new political awareness which is gradually being transformed into an articulate, organized but unmonolithic, movement." (Lewis, “Style in Revolt” 170).And he was right: this new music came to awaken the people of Hawaii and pushed them to rediscover their authenticity as a culture. As George Lewis states in his essay Style in Revolt: the Hawaiian Cultural Renaissance, “[The music] celebrates the traditions of native Hawaiians in opposition to the cultural domination of the mainland United States” (172).In this way, music also became a symbol of political protest. Some songs were very clear in their message. The song Waimanalo Blues, written in 1974 by Hawaiian activist Liko Martin, has straightforward lyrics: “Spun right around and found that I’d lost the things that I couldn’t lose / the beaches they sell to build their hotels, my fathers and I once knew.” Hawaii ’78, written by Kawika Crowley and again later popularized by Iz, was likewise painfully honest in its chilling chorus: “Cry for the gods, cry for the people / Cry for the land that was taken away / And then bid goodbye, to Hawai'i.”These two songs feature Hawaii’s trademark slack key guitar, ukulele, and simple drum beat (although the instrumentation varies with rendition), but the lyrics are in English, and the melody follows the typical Western arrangement of verse chorus verse. The album that could be said to have sparked the Hawaiian Renaissance, The Sunday Manoa’s 1971 album Guava Jam, had songs that were much more Hawaiian in their overall composition. In fact, there were only two English language songs on the album; the rest were fully in Hawaiian. The first track, Kawika, is a remake of a mele inoa (name chant) praising King David Kalakaua. The translated lyrics are as follows: “This is David [Kawika], the greatest of all flowers / (He is) the lightning in the east that brightens Hawai'i.” The original purpose of chants was to praise the king and reinforce hierarchy, and this song is an example of Hawaiian music being motivated once again by its true intention and not by industry or tourism.The return of these kinds of traditional chants and songs also saw the reintroduction and popularization of folk instruments. The unique and easily recognizable sound of the ipu (gourd drum) can be heard in many songs from the 70s and onwards, as well as the 'ili 'ili (stone castanets), pahu (the sharkskin drum), and the 'ulili (triple gourd rattle) (Lewis, “Style in Revolt” 174). Traditional Hawaiian songs were often polyrhythmic, with a constant pounding drum or gourd beat, a rattle, and possibly a melodic instrument to accompany a group chant; cultural revival songs of the 70s drew on this basic premise. In songs like Kawika, you will most likely hear this gourd and rattle combo, and a chorus of multiple voices singing at once to mirror a group chant.The use of the Hawaiian language in music and new compositions can largely be credited to the musical group Sons of Hawai’i. Gabby Pahinui and Eddy Kamae were two of the members that headed not only the group, but the cultural movement. Their island roots and research and knowledge of old time Hawaiian melodies allowed them to perform and bring back older songs, such as Queen Liluokalani’s composition Ka ‘Oiwi Nani. They also started to compose new songs with both Hawaiian and English lyrics and elements. He Punahele No ‘Oe, sung by Moe Keale, another member of Sons of Hawai’i, is a perfect example of this. The first half is in Hawaiian, and the second half in English.Peter Moon, one of the members of The Sunday Manoa and later a successful solo artist, acknowledged “the need to satisfy a diverse market and produce records that have a mix of local and mainland styles… to ensure enough sales” (Burke 176). This reason, as well as the fact that English was a prominently used language even for Hawaiians, contributed to the creation of songs like He Punahele No ‘Oe.Another important musical group of the renaissance was Hui ‘Ohana, composed of Dennis Pavao and brothers Ledward and Nedward Ka’apana, who were all influential and successful as solo artists as well. The group is famous for bringing back the Hawaiian style of falsetto singing, called ka leo ki'eki'e. Many of their songs are remakes of older songs, such as Nani Waimea, a short upbeat song about “nani Waimea, ku`u home Kamuela, ku'u 'âina aloha” (beautiful Waimea, my home in Kamuela, land that I love) (Kanoa-Martin). The people of Hawai’i shared a deep connection with the island, and this song shares the same appreciation of nature that is seen in almost all Hawaiian language lyrics.Ka Uluwehi O Ke Kai, a 1979 hit by Edith Kanakaole, is a modern composition in the Hawaiian language expressing a deep appreciation and wonder for the island’s beauty. The lyrics, in the vein of true Hawaiian chants and songs, follow somewhat of a story format. First she admires the ocean (“such a delight to see / the great big ocean”), then walks on the beach (“it is lipoa which washed ashore / onto the shiny white sand”), and then sings about plucking the swaying seaweed (“how enticing is the display of limu kohu / as they sway to and fro”), so we can assume that she has dived in and is now swimming. The lyrics do not repeat like in the Western verse chorus verse format, and neither do they make an effort to rhyme.A look at other pieces in this genre shows that these characteristics— a theme of nature appreciation, a linear and almost story-like format, and a lack of repeating verses or rhyme— span across all Hawaiian language songs.The 1970s saw revivals of old Hawaiian songs, instruments, and lyrics, as well as new compositions and incorporation of Western elements. They showed familiar themes of nature appreciation, praise of royalty, and love, but also the new theme of political resistance. The strategic use of Hawaiian language became a statement of pride and ethnicity. Although this cultural renaissance died down somewhat in the 80s, its influence is still evident on the music of Hawaii today.

ReferencesBuck, Elizabeth Bentzel. Paradise Remade: The Politics of Culture and History in Hawai'i. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1993. Print.Lewis, George H. "Da Kine Sounds: The Function of Music as Social Protest in the New Hawaiian Renaissance." American Music 2.2 (1984): 38-52.JSTOR. Web. 08 Oct. 2014.<http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/3051657?ref=no-x-route:6d2b970d2372f51469091200430b40b9>.Lewis, George H. "Style in Revolt Music, Social Protest, and the Hawaiian Cultural Renaissance." International Social Science Review 62.4 (1987): 168-77. JSTOR. Web. 08 Oct. 2014. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/41881768?ref=no-x-route:26c1dc26faddc67bb9e45adb12ff40b8>.Stillman, Amy Ku'uleialoha. "Textualizing Hawaiian Music." American Music 23.1 (2005): 69. Web. 08 Oct. 2014.Kanoa-Martin, Kaiulani. "Hawaiian Hula Archives." Hawaiian Hula Archives. 1997. Web. 9 Oct. 2014. <http://www.huapala.org/>."Eddie Kamae." The Sons of Hawaii. 1 Jan. 2010. Web. 10 Oct. 2014. <http://www.sonsofhawaii.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=53&Itemid=61>.

Notions of Care
2021-6-6

After a long day of work I was scrolling mindlessly on my phone when I stumbled across a video of myself on social media, unexpectedly.I was startled for a second, in the way that you sometimes are when seeing yourself from a third-person perspective. Someone had taken a video of me while I was handling an artwork — a very delicate and expensive print — and I was struck by the tenderness with which I was taking care of it, and the environment that made this possible. God, would anything I ever made be treated with such care? In a world where healing is made so clinical, expensive, rushed, and scarce, how miraculous is it that such a safe space for self-expression can exist? I recalled instances where I, a whole human being, was treated with less care and respect than this unfeeling, inanimate object. What are my chances, realistically —Here, the clip of me ends, and next pops up a news story on the bombing of Palestine. There is a photo of a gaping black cloud of gas swallowing a crowd of small beige buildings; then another photo, this one of ashen men shouting amidst clouds of dust and heaps of fresh rubble.I wonder how to communicate the complete absurdity I felt in this moment, when pixels away from my digital image were bombs and the bodies of children; the absurdity that in this finite world there could simultaneously exist two such contradicting realities, one in which a young girl loses her mother and father and brother and home in one day as a matter of course, and another in which I am in Tokyo holding my breath and lifting a piece of paper following a sheltered 20 year long training course, shuffled from room to room and molded by (frankly arbitrary) curriculums, so that I might be deemed an agreeable woman trustworthy enough to do so.I’ve been mulling it over and over in my head since then — what was it that I was so bewildered by? It was the cognitive dissonance of such contrasting realities, I realized. It was dizzying. How can we live side by side while espousing such wildly different notions of violence and care?I sometimes walk into work and find it strange and absurd that we should even have this idea of the “gallery”, a space that aims to acknowledge and then increase the value of a single individual amidst a global culture that seems to want the opposite (the economic enslavement of colonized countries, the increasing wealth gap worldwide, the minimum wage enforced upon the masses). To allow a single random human to express their most emotional and vulnerable self, we have built these impenetrable white castles which require incredible amounts of defense and protection to stand without disturbance — a requirement that limits the aforementioned “we” to the “winning” countries in the game of imperialism and capitalism, since these bubbles of peace can only operate upon, ironically, the necessary promotion of acceptable violence among the countries we step on to stay afloat — otherwise we should have nothing to step on, and drown ourselves. It is a world of inconsistencies and hypocrisies, a world that requires extreme mental acrobatics to justify.“We should remember now that we live in a ‘cupola’ where terrorist violence is a threat that just explodes from time to time, in contrast to countries where (with the participation or complicity of the West) daily life consists of uninterrupted terror and brutality.”This is a line I came across the other day in Slavoj Žižek’s book, The Courage of Hopelessness. It wasn’t a grand point in itself; it was part of a larger explanation he was expanding upon. And it’s not like I didn’t know this already. But my mind had snagged on this line, and couldn’t get free of it. There was an image that had materialized in my head, of myself and the spaces I occupy — the gallery space of the fine art world — as a cupola within a cupola, a sort of bubble within a bubble, where safety is the ultimate manifestation of supremacy. Those who manage to leave their imprint on the world through the markings they make on the walls of this cupola become the illustrators of the histories we remember, and all those who never make it in simply disappear. This is not just a matter of genius and hard work, as many like to think, but just as much a matter of inequality, oppression, and circumstance. The very notion of uplifting a single voice here is built upon the silencing of others. The walls could not stay standing otherwise.This may seem obvious, but in places where terror is a daily occurrence, art can not flourish. For a multitude of reasons, of course, but for now I am speaking in the most literal sense, the fact that the physical materials needed for the art and the gallery can not exist, and lives are cut short before they can even begin to develop as individual voices. And it has only been recently that I’ve properly come to understand that violence is not the unforgivable sin I thought it was, but in fact something that occurs commonly without repercussion, and taints every single thing that we touch. Care and respect, which I had believed to be a universal human right, is but a matter of privilege and luck, built on an injustice done unto someone else. In this way, wealth is created; with this wealth, art is sponsored; the art, in order to condemn the wealth, submits to it; and the walls of the cupola are reinforced.And so we go back to my question: will anything I ever make be treated with such care? What are my chances, realistically?As someone who has already made it into the dome, well, my chances are a hell of a lot higher than the rest of the world.I’m aware that I’m not saying anything new here – art is built on dirty money, and white men have a better chance of accessing these platforms of power. My current knee-jerk response is to say that there is not much we can do about it. It is easy to become cynical while looking for an answer. But I believe it is the responsibility of all of us who enjoy this safety to take advantage of it, to record and share our own stories and histories in the stead of those who can not, to open our doors to those who seek platforms that may not even exist in their environment. This is why, though it often feels pointless and hopeless, I am trying to force myself to write and speak my truth and to support others who do the same.The very structure that much contemporary art condemns, it needs. Yet we should not forget that all artists come into creating art with the intent to try and change the world. And for now, this naïveté is all I have to keep me going.>> This is an extremely immature half-formed thought and work in progress exploring notions of care, therapy, healing, connection, support, and rebellion through art. Maybe one day I’ll actually have a thesis with a point. Who knows. Stay tuned.

art writing

yukari nishi, magma: index #7
matthew stone: human in the loop
daido moriyama: daido hysteric
ichi tashiro: serendipity
kosuke kawamura: try something better
james jean: azimuth
tengaone: -盲点- blind spot
madsaki: madsucky wuz here
kasper sonne: body body head
zes: beneath the surface

translations

hiroki yamamoto: dismantling the myth of the universality of beauty (die young, stay pretty exhibition catalog, kotaro nukaga, 2024)
under current (exhibition catalog, shanghai powerlong museum, 2024)
akira tatehata: the multiplicity of identity- the world of tomokazu matsuyama (2024)
toshihari suzuki: does light stop within window panes?– yuriko kurimoto’s window (window research institute)
yutaka kikutake: between hatakeyama and sugiura (window research institute)
kunié sugiura: my window (window research institute)
keita morimoto: after dark
soimadou ibrahim: farewell savane
stefan brüggemann: allow action (gold paintings)
atsushi ogata: greater jars and ordinary vessels
madsaki: madsucky wuz here

translation services

my standard rate is 19 yen per japanese character for japanese to english translation, and a little less for english proofreading only. rates may be adjusted depending on the schedule and difficulty of the text.please note that i am a native english speaker, and japanese is my second language. my speciality lies in translation to english, but as of yet, not the other way around.

CV

2021 - Current
Gallery Common | Assistant Director
Freelance translator2021 | KOTARO NUKAGA
Exhibition Coordinator2020 | Audioforce Tokyo
Artist Manager2020 | König Tokio
Gallery Assistant2016 - 2019 | Kaikai Kiki Gallery
Exhibition Coordinator & International Sales Associate2014 - 2016 | Temple University Japan
Bachelor of Arts, Psychology

Areas of interest

Continental philosophy
Psychological fiction
Cosmology
Dance
Tech ethics
K-pop (2nd-3rd gen)
Etymology
Mandarin
Wine
Critical theory