Haptic Processing with TT Takemoto and Eve Oishi

Join us for a hands-on dorodango-making workshop and conversation between artist TT Takemoto and cultural studies scholar Eve Oishi in conjunction with the exhibition

 TT Takemoto: Remembering in the Absence of Memory, on view at the Cantor Arts Center from June 19 through December 1, 2024.

We will begin the evening with a demonstration by Takemoto on the Japanese art form of dorodango, where earth and water are combined, molded, and polished to create delicate, shiny spheres. Come get your hands dirty and try out molding these balls with us out of earth collected on the Stanford campus. Collectively, we will continue to polish these spheres over the course of the evening while Takemoto and Oishi are in discussion.

The Cantor’s current exhibition includes two of Takemoto’s video works along with a number of handcrafted objects made as part of the series “Gentleman’s Gaman” (2009–23). A striking display of handcrafted kokeshi dolls in glass and clay–the latter made with dorodango heads–anchors the exhibition. This series evokes arts and crafts made by Japanese Americans in U.S. internment camps during World War II. In doing so, the work examines how handcraft–and making do with available materials one finds while away from home–can offer a means of personal expression and a way to cope with traumatic experiences and histories.

Takemoto’s recent production of moving image work also involves work done by hand–in this case through the meticulous manipulation of the material substance of film, frame by frame. A chapter of Eve Oishi’s current book in progress entitled “Ruined Matter: Haptic Processing and Spectral Cinema” draws connections between diasporic experience of loss and void, veiled reference to queer subjectivity, and the hapticality of analog image-making practices that fragment or distort filmic representations of history. In this program, Oishi will be in discussion with Takemoto about their “cameraless ‘emulsion lift’ films” and their practice at large. At the close of the discussion, attendees will have opportunities both to pose questions and to admire the polished fruits of their own haptic labor.

Participants:

TT Takemoto is a queer Japanese American artist exploring hidden dimensions of same-sex intimacy in Asian American history. Takemoto interacts with found footage and archival materials through performance and labor-intensive processes of painting, lifting, and manipulating 16mm/35mm film emulsion using clear tape, razor blades, and nail polish. By engaging with tactile and sensory dimensions of queer histories, Takemoto conjures up immersive fantasies honoring Asian Americans who lived, loved, and labored together. Takemoto was awarded the Grand Jury Prize for Best Experimental Film at Slamdance Film Festival. They have received grants from Art Matters, ArtPlace, Fleishhacker Foundation, Lucas Artists Program at Montalvo Arts Center, and San Francisco Arts Commission. Their screenings include Ann Arbor, Anthology Film Archive, Asian Art Museum, BFI Flare, de Young Museum, Documenta 15, MIX Mexico, Marseille Underground Film Festival, Outfest, Queer Forever! (Hanoi), Rio Gay Film Festival, SFMOMA, and Xposed International Queer Film Festival (Berlin).

Eve Oishi (She/They) is an associate professor in Claremont Graduate University’s Cultural Studies Department. Their primary research interests include Asian American cultural studies, independent and experimental film and video, transnational media, and gender and queer theory. In addition to their scholarship, they are an independent film and video curator and were the inaugural curator for Fusion: Los Angeles LGBT People of Color Film Festival. They are the co-editor (with Jennifer Abod) of a special issue of Journal of International Women’s Studies on “The Practice and Legacy of a Black Lesbian Feminist: Selections from the Archive of Dr. Angela Bowen (1936-2018)” as well as (with David K. Seitz) a special issue of QED: A Journal in GLBTQ+ Worldmaking on "The Queer 1990s." Oishi is completing a monograph entitled Partial Form: An Experimental History of Asian American Film and Video.

Parking

Free visitor parking is available along Lomita Drive as well as on the first floor of the Roth Way Garage Structure, located at the corner of Campus Drive West and Roth Way at 345 Campus Drive, Stanford, CA 94305. From the Palo Alto Caltrain station, the Cantor Arts Center is about a 20-minute walk or there the free Marguerite shuttle will bring you to campus via the Y or X lines.