2022
HYMN FOR A LOST TOMORROW
Projected video (public art projection)
8min loop projected at the High Wall / Inscape Arts in Seattle, WA
Hymn for a Lost Tomorrow (The High Wall) is a video work that was projected on the facade of the INScape Arts Building (The High Wall) in Seattle, WA. The building is a former immigration detention center which was also used as a temporal detention facility to imprison Japanese and Japanese-American citizens who were later sent off to the internment camps during WWII.
*The original video was made in 2019 which was later remade for the High Wall projection. Revisiting the video and Only What We Could Carry, I used the prints to create this piece which presents me in front of the prints singing a silent hymn and contemplating on past traumas as a singing siren warning the future.
2022
HYMN FOR A LOST TOMORROW
Projected video (public art projection)
8min loop projected at the High Wall / Inscape Arts in Seattle, WA
Hymn for a Lost Tomorrow (The High Wall) is a video work that was projected on the facade of the INScape Arts Building (The High Wall) in Seattle, WA. The building is a former immigration detention center which was also used as a temporal detention facility to imprison Japanese and Japanese-American citizens who were later sent off to the internment camps during WWII.
*The original video was made in 2019 which was later remade for the High Wall projection. Revisiting the video and Only What We Could Carry, I used the prints to create this piece which presents me in front of the prints singing a silent hymn and contemplating on past traumas as a singing siren warning the future.
© 2023 by Kei Ito.
Created on Editor X.
Sungazing
2015 - Ongoing
108 of 8”x10” prints, Scroll: 12” x 150’ to 220’ depending on the edition
On August 6th 1945, at 8:15 AM, my grandfather witnessed a great tragedy that destroyed nearly everything in Hiroshima. He survived the bombing, yet he lost many of his family members from the explosion and radiation poisoning. As an activist and author, my grandfather fought against the use of nuclear weaponry throughout his life, until he too passed away from cancer when I was ten years old. I remember him saying that day in Hiroshima was like hundreds of suns lighting up the sky.
In order to express the connection between the sun and my family history, I have created 108 letter size prints and a 200 foot long scroll, made by exposing Type-C photographic paper to sunlight. The pattern on the prints/scroll corresponds to my breath. In a darkened room, I pulled the paper in front of a small aperture to expose it to the sun while inhaling, and paused when exhaling. I repeated this action until I breathed 108 times. 108 is a number with ritual significance in Japanese Buddhism; to mark the Japanese New Year, bells toll 108 times, ridding us of our evil passions and desires, and purifying our souls.
If the black parts of the print remind you of a shadow, it is the shadow of my breath, which is itself a registration of my life, a life I share with and owe to my grandfather. The mark of the atomic blast upon his life and upon his breath was passed on to me, and you can see it as the shadow of this print.