In Conversation: Brandon Shimoda and Rea Tajiri

Brandon Shimoda and Rea Tajiri are in conversation at The Barnes on Wednesday, December 2, from 6 to 7 PM. The talk brings together the poet and author Shimoda and the artist and filmmaker Tajiri, and the two will spend the hour talking about how their work engages the histories and legacies of Japanese Americans who were incarcerated during World War II, drawing on memory and creative practice.

There's a specific point of connection that ties the two together: Shimoda wrote a commissioned poem, To be hybrid anticipates the future / or, in a strange land among strangers, which appears in the exhibition catalogue as a response to Isamu Noguchi's 1942 essay I Become a Nisei. That essay, written while Noguchi was in an incarceration camp, serves as a starting point for the conversation.

Shimoda is an award-winning poet and a professor at Colorado College; his book The Afterlife Is Letting Go (City Lights, 2024) took home the Colorado Book Award. Tajiri was born in Chicago and earned her BFA and MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. The talk is presented alongside the exhibition Noguchi to Asawa: Designing Postwar America and is part of the Barnes's series of talks led by gallery specialists about the collection, its history and founder.

It's held in the Roberts Gallery at The Barnes in Philadelphia. Admission is free, though registration is required, so you'll want to sign up ahead of time if you're planning to go. The talk runs from 6 to 7 PM on Wednesday, December 2.