The "Go-Betweens," the word used in the title of this exhibition, "Go-Betweens: The World Seen through Children," refers to mediators, people who go back and forth between one place and another. The talk session program, "Children That Live Different Cultures" held on July 13, 2014, an adjunct to the "Go-Betweens" exhibition, focused on the nature of the children who go back and forth across the borders of different cultures. Lawson Fusao Inada, professor emeritus of Southern Oregon University, a poet and third-generation Japanese-American, together with Chinese artist Zhang O who currently resides in New York and whose art was featured in this exhibition discussed the "Go-Betweens" who have crossed the ocean and brought different cultures together.
Lawson Fusao Inada
In front of the screen, Inada talked about his own experience
Throughout the session titled "Go-Between and Go-Among: Japan and America," Inada reading aloud one of his poems based on his own experience of the history. Talked about the living environment of Japanese-Americans in the United States, Inada, as a third-generation Japanese-American born in California, was interned with the rest of his family in an internment camp for Americans of Japanese descent after the attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II, and spent his childhood there until the war ended. His poem, "The Legend of the Lost Boy" which he read on this occasion portrayed a little boy who was lost in the internment camp among the buildings that all looked the same. His poem conveyed the despondency of his young self and the heartbreak of the Japanese-American people who had lost everything. The tone of Inada's talk, however, was cheerful and animated throughout. He told the audience an amusing story about how, when his family was taken to the internment camp, the family's business, a fish shop, was entrusted to Italian neighbors, the family's home to German neighbors, and the family pet dog, to Chinese neighbors. Within a community of immigrants who came from different backgrounds, there was a willingness to help one another, something that transcended the wartime concept of friend or foe.
Zhang O
Zhang O, who has taken numerous photographs of children in China, one of her main themes being Chinese girls, gave a talk about the children of China titled "Beyond the Horizon - Children from Xinzhou to New York." In a series of photographs depicting girls who live in the countryside of China titled Horizon, the intense gaze of the unassuming, diffident children not used to being photographed is striking. Zhang enlarged these photographs, turned them into prints, and exhibited them throughout the city of Vancouver, Canada. With these larger-than-life-size photographs of children who would ordinarily be ignored, she emphasized their existence. Daddy and I, a series exhibited in the "Go-Betweens" exhibition, features portrait-style photographs of Chinese girls who were adopted from China and found a new home in the United States, taken together with their adoptive American fathers. The effect of the one-child policy in China and of deregulation of international adoptions meant that many Chinese girls (most of the adopted children are girls) have crossed the ocean since the 1990s. From the various stories of family life documented by Zhang in her photographs, one can feel the bonds of love nurtured between the girls and their new families, which goes beyond the bonds of blood and the boundaries between countries.
Zhang O
Horizon: No.24
2004
Type C-print
101.6×111.76cm
Zhang O
Daddy & I: No.16
2006
Type C-print
100×100cm
Collection: Mori Art Museum, Tokyo
Inada, who comes across as a born entertainer, told us in a humorous and entertaining way, some memorable stories which showed us the richness of diversity, about the multi-cultural environment in which he grew up, and included impersonations of the way his friends at school talked and gesticulated (among them Native Americans, African-Americans, Chinese, Latvians, and Armenians). "Go-Betweens" has the power to create new values beyond the various conflicts which arise from discord between different cultures, and division caused by war and deep-rooted discrimination. It should also lead to the future of a world where everyone's point of view is expanded in a variety of different ways. Powerful messages containing such a hope were communicated during this talk session.
Text: Araki Natsumi（Curator, Mori Art Museum）
Photographs: Tayama Tatsuyuki
Curator, Araki Natsumi
Lawson Fusao Inada (left) and Zhang O (right)
■Relevant information
・"Go-Betweens: The World Seen through Children"
Exhibition Period: Saturday, May 31 - Sunday, August 31, 2014
・"MAM Project 021: Melvin Moti"
Exhibition Period: Saturday, May 31 - Sunday, August 31, 2014
