Cindy Mochizuki: Autumn Strawberry
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Surrey Art Gallery 13750 88 Ave, Surrey, British Columbia V3W 3L1
Cindy Mochizuki, "'Grandmother's berry farm in Langley," 1941
photo courtesy of artist
Artist Talk | June 28 | 6:30–7:30 p.m.
At the Gallery’s free summer opening reception on Saturday June 28, Mochizuki will talk about her plans for her summer residency in partnership with the Nikkei Museum at 6:30 p.m.
Autumn Strawberry is the name of a strawberry crop that could fruit in cold winters. It was bred by Bunjiro Sakon, an Issei pioneer (a Japanese immigrant to Canada) who ran a farm in Mission, BC. For this TechLab residency, Mochizuki will collect berry farming-related agricultural histories and stories from Japanese Canadians in Surrey and the Fraser Valley. She will also create drawings, scripts, and storyboards for her two-channel animated film.
As she often does with her art, Mochizuki will blend her own family history into the narrative, as her paternal grandparents were berry farmers in Langley before World War II. When war broke out, the Canadian government sold their farm and sent them, along with other Japanese residents, to harsh labour camps in the BC interior.
“During the interment, the Japanese Canadians weren’t allowed to take photographs. Because there were no images, I’m interested in making those images. I want to make visible what is not visible in history,” Mochizuki says.
People are welcome to stop by the TechLab, located in Surrey Art Gallery, on Thursdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. in July and August to meet Cindy and see her progress so far. The artist will be presenting elements from her film sets, storyboards, past film animations, and conceptual sketches for her final presentation of Autumn Strawberry. Cindy will also be leading a free, two-part stop-motion animation workshop on August 13 and 20 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. as part of Surrey Art Gallery’s Art Together program for all ages.
About the Artist
Cindy Mochizuki creates multimedia installation, audio fiction, performance, animation, and drawings. Her works explore the manifestation of story and its relationship to site-specificity, invisible histories, archives, and memory work. Her artistic process moves back and forth between multiple sites of cultural production considering language, chance, improvisation, and engaging communities. She has exhibited, performed, and screened her work in Canada, US, and Asia. Exhibitions include the Frye Art Museum (Seatte, Washington), Yonago City Museum (Yonago, Japan), The New Gallery (Calgary), Hamilton Artists Inc (Hamilton), and Koganecho Bazaar (Yokohama). In 2015, she received the Vancouver’s Mayor’s Arts Award in New Media and Film.