BODY MEMORY - BODY VISION: Performance Works

DENISE UYEHARA

DENISE UYEHARA

Denise Uyehara is an interdisciplinary performance artist, writer and playwright who has been creating work since 1989.  Her performances have been presented across the United States (the Walker Art Center, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Highways Performance Space), and internationally (the Institute for Contemporary Art in London, the Kiasma Museum in Helsinki, Dokkyo Performance Studies Conference and the Morishita Studio in Tokyo, Women in View Festival in Vancouver).  She is a frequent university lecturer.



Recent works include “Dreams & Silhouettes/Suenos y siluetas,” a collaborative performance installation inspired by communities in Tucson and near the border that live with militarization, detention and deportation.  “Archipelago” a duet with video artist Adam Cooper-Terán follows a thread of fire and flood through Yaqui and Okinawan origin stories.  “The Senkotsu (Mis)Translation Project,” and interdisciplinary performance installation which explores the U.S. military occupation in Okinawa; and “Big Head”, links the U.S. government’s incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II with treatment of those perceived as “the enemy” now, including Arab Americans, Muslims, and South Asian Americans. Earlier works include “Hello (Sex) Kitty: Mad Asian Bitch on Wheels,” “Headless Turtleneck Relatives,” and “Maps of City & Body.”  She was a founding member of the Sacred Naked Nature Girls, an experimental, multicultural performance collective.

Denise in 1 Minute

Uyehara has received numerous awards which include the mid-career C.O.L.A. Award from the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, a Project Grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts and funding from the Asian Cultural Council, the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program. She was a Poets & Writers ‘Writer on Site’ at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Beyond Baroque Literary Center. Uyehara was a member of the California Arts Council Touring Roster. 

She teaches workshops in the community, and has taught performance for the Dept. of World Arts & Cultures at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and for the Depts. of Asian American Studies and Studio Arts at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). She holds a BA in Comparative Literature (UCI) and an MFA from the Dept. of World Arts & Cultures (UCLA).




Shooting Columbus



Notes from curator Nicole Daskas

Denise Uyehara is a performance artist, playwright, and writer who has been making work since 1989. She exhibits her work internationally, teaches community workshops, and lectures at universities. Her performances featured in Body Vision Body Memory focus on identity, and the mapping of the self and the body. I met with the artist to discuss her work, the idea of mapping, and the role of the artist today.

As Uyehara began showing work internationally, she discovered that her identity was not fixed; it was largely based on her geographical location and others’ perception. While traveling abroad, it became evident that she was seen more as American as opposed to Asian American, woman, feminist, or queer. She described this experience as “cultural mistranslation”. When she traveled to Okinawa, her relatives and locals recognized her Okinawan background and treated her like a local. Moving throughout the world has taught Uyehara that identity is largely relational, and she speaks about Marta Savigliano’s idea of axis of identity. Rather than each person having one axis of identity, the axis exists between individuals. Uyehara’s work maps her identity as well as her connections to others and the world around her. She says that if we knew everything, we would have no need for a map. Through making work, one can learn to heal by creating different relationships to the past and new memories.


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Continental Drift (from Ancestral Cartographic Rituals)



Uyehara also spoke about the importance of collaboration among artists, communities, and identities. Her performance education, largely from Highways Performance Space, left no choice but for artists to work together. She learned through performance workshops that creating work was a common language. This idea has been evident throughout Uyehara’s career, especially in performance group Sacred Naked Nature Girls. Uyehara co-founded the experimental collective, which also included Akilah Oliver, Danielle Brazel, and Laura Meyers. Sacred Naked Nature Girls came together organically, as the four members were already hanging out. The collective aimed to speak and make work about the difficult things, one of their main focuses being “flesh memory”, an idea Akilah Oliver brought to the group. Flesh memory is stored in the body in the form of our memories and the memories of our ancestors. It is constantly being added to. Sacred Naked Nature Girls was also about nakedness of the psyche and healing. The group reframed nudity by taking control of their own bodies, and learning about what makes them feel comfortable. They questioned constructions of what women are by making visceral work; one performer would act as predator and another would act as prey.   

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Big Head




Denise Uyehara’s Big Head (2001-2003), highlights the experience of being “othered” in America. This piece was written and performed in response to 9/11. Uyehara stands in solidarity with those who were wrongfully targeted and treated as the enemy post 9/11. She draws parallel between Japanese Americans placed in internment camps following Pearl Harbor and Muslims, Arabs, and South Asians. She spoke about the repercussions of 9/11, and at first felt overwhelmed at the thought of Big Head. As she proposed the idea of the piece, suggesting that other artists create the work, it became clear to her that she was supposed to create the work. She found her great uncle’s letters written from an internment camp, and began questioning her own connection to being seen as an enemy. From this questioning came a powerful performance documented in the link above. Uyehara included many people’s voices in the performance, highlighting the experience of feeling alienated and targeted due to racist and colonialist stereotypes. 
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As I watched and read about Big Head, I could not help but draw connections to the current political climate in America. Police brutality targeted toward black Americans, Chinese Americans being targeted and blamed for Covid-19, and white supremacist terrorists storming the Capitol emboldened by Trump. This is what makes Big Head such an intensely compelling and unsettling work; it continues to be relevant and accurately portray race relations in the US. I was absolutely struck by one quote in particular, in which Shady Hakim, whose voice appears in Big Head said that he began to see the American flag plastered all over after 9/11. He wondered if this was to show solidarity with victims of the attack and those who had lost loved ones, or if it meant they wanted him dead. I also thought about the unjust standards for BIPOC; why are all Arabs, Muslims, and South Asians expected to answer for the acts of one member of their community? Why is the word “terrorist” so quickly used to label a person of color, but not a white person? 



Denise Uyehara uses her body as a medium in order to assert autonomy not only for herself, but also for those whose voices are missing from the conversation. Sacred Naked Nature Girls presented the female body in a natural and visceral way, combatting the objectification of women’s bodies seen throughout the traditional Western art historical canon. The female body is not an object to be gazed upon for male pleasure; it is a mode of creation and a means by which one can explore bodily memory. Big Head identifies the repercussions of Othering BIPOC, as well as the importance of standing in solidarity with marginalized communities. 

My conversation with Denise Uyehara was both enlightening and inspiring. I asked her what she believed to be the role of the artist right now, during such uncertain and horrific times. She emphasized the importance of listening to those around us. People- predominantly people of color- are dying around us. This is a time for both reflection and action. Uyehara currently serves as a member of the advisory board for KORE press institute, a literary arts organization. KORE is working to highlight the work of radical black artists, as well as fight against hate and marginalization of voices of BIPOC, women, and queer artists. Uyehara spoke about her own responsibility, and encouraged artists to question whose voices are being silenced, and who is missing from the room. 
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http://deniseuyehara.com
 

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