I met artist Tadashi Moriyama at Art Fair in 2015. I interviewed him through email. This was around the time that Kantra started walking and her life force was beaming. Haruki and I were exhausted, grappling with this new human among us. “Where did you come from?” Haruki asks her. “Do you remember?” I dropped the ball on this (and a few others). If you’re reading this Moriyama, my apologies. The first time I saw Tadashi Moriyama’s work was at …
Tag: japan
Born With It is a short film about an African-Japanese boy who identifies as Japanese, but the world sees him differently. Written and directed by Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour, Jr., the story explores isolation, alienation, and racism. Aside from the heartbreaking, yet revealing documentary Hafu, Born might be the first of it’s kind: it’s a scripted film, Japan is a vital character, and it exclusively centers a half black half Japanese kid struggling to make sense of who he is. It’s a tiny film that needs to be seen. Emmanuel and …
Last night I woke up at five in the morning to get some water. I gulped it down and opened my eyes to my wife holding my head up. “Are you ok? You collapsed”, she said. I was laying near the dinning table with a chair on top of me. I don’t remember anything, except waking up to the sound of my moaning. Nothing like that has ever happened to me before. The stress of living here has managed to manifest …
Geishas rock afros, corn rolls and dreadlocks. They fashionably freeze with the same intensity that break dancers pose on the floor, but artist Iona Rozeal Brown’s acrylic painted Asiatic people are in brown face, and they’re a clashing of sorts. Comic book motifs, Ukiyo-e prints, Kabuki theater, Noh, Byzantine religious painting, voguing and most notably hip-hop, mix together like two turntables playing tug of war with the cross fader. If Brown was a DJ (which apparently she is), she’d be taking viewers on a journey all …
Mangchi’s Nega Mola EP is here; the hammer has been dropped. Mangchi (Korean for hammer) is the musical super project of artist David Choe aka Igloo Hong, comedian/rapper/singer Steve Lee aka Quangou (Comedian/actor Bobby Lee’s brother), musician/producer Money Mark (Beastie Boys and many other projects) and their cast of talented friends have put together an amazing EP called Nega Mola (Korean -Nega 네가 You + Molla 몰라 I Don’t Know = You Don’t Know, a nod to a DVDASA podcast catchphrase by crew member Vale aka …
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