Moko Fukuyama in Collaboration with Yo! Vinyl Richie

Amidst the current, compounding crises of public health, politics, systemic racism, and the environment, the project asks: What forms of dialogue are possible in the face of heightened polarization and mandated social isolation? How does the potential for an exchange of perspectives vary across local, regional, and national levels? Fukuyama sets out to explore these questions in a quasi-documentary style, stemming from a series of trips she has conducted across the United States to speak with people she meets through her personal networks or by happenstance. American Recordings unfolds as a series of acts, each consisting of performances, installations, and films. At Queenslab, the artist will complete the initial sections—Act I: American Harvest and Act II: American Frequency.

Fukuyama’s approach to this endeavor is informed by her position as a Japanese citizen who has spent exactly half of her life to date in the United States. The first two acts ground the project in places that have shaped Fukuyama’s relationship to the country: Act I focuses on Iowa, the state where she first lived in the US as an exchange student, and Act II homes in on the city of Memphis, where she attended college and continues to visit regularly. Probing the boundaries between foreigner and citizen, visitor and resident, the artist examines how her experiences inform her ability to comment on or have conversations about the national landscape.

In American Recordings, Fukuyama fuses the real-world source material she has captured on her travels with imaginative elements in order to conjure up alternative models for discourse between individuals and among groups. The resulting films will weave together the personal perspectives of people Fukuyama interviewed on her trips, an autofictional monologue by the artist, and vignettes from her collaborative artistic processes at Queenslab. In contrast to the traditional discursive aims of articulating a straightforward ideological position or reconciling differences of opinion between subjects, these multi-layered portrayals present associative webs that hold disparate people, places, and ideas in relation to one another. American Recordings offers one response to the breakdown of dialogue that is so prevalent in the public sphere today: the project instead intentionally lingers in the spaces between divergent viewpoints, mining the interstices for their potential to generate more nuanced exchanges.

Organized by Alison Burstein, Curator of Media and Engagement.

BIO

Moko Fukuyama is a Japanese multidisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, New York. She explores socioeconomic realities and the psychology of everyday life through her practice. Fukuyama has received grants, fellowships, residencies and commissions from notable art institutions such as Rema Hort Mann Foundation, Foundation For Contemporary Arts, Jerome Foundation, SOHO20, MacDowell, Yaddo, Recess, The Shed, ISCP (International Studio & Curatorial Program), and more. She completed her residency at The Kitchen, New York, New York, in spring 2021. During this residency, she produced and presented ‘American Recordings, Act I: American Harvest’ and ‘Act II: American Frequency’ in collaboration with Yo! Vinyl Richie. She was a 2021 fellow at Franconia Sculpture Park, Shafer, Minnesota. In the same year, she created and exhibited a large-scale sculptural installation ‘Shrine (Hell Gate Keepers)’ at Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens, New York. The work will join LongHouse Reserve in East Hampton, New York for their upcoming season. She recently had a solo exhibition ‘Streaming Surface’ at Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, New York. In spring & summer 2022, she will develop new works as part of her residency at STONELEAF RETREAT in partnership with River Valley Arts Collective and exhibit at the Al Held Foundation, Boiceville, New York