ARTIST TALKS
2016 Artist Talk, "MoMA Prime Time Exchange" How can we bring different generation together? Co-produced by MoMA (The Museum of Modern Art) at The Museum of Modern Art
2016 Artist Talk, "Art + Inter-generational Exchange", co-produced by More Art and Artist Volunteer Center and a part of the ArtsEverywhere/Musagetes Artist Round Table series, moderated by Queens Museum Staff. At Queens Museum
2010 Guest Panelist, "Brainstorm! Selling Work Online", A presentation of the Asian American Arts Alliance, co-produced by the Queens Council on the Arts and New York Foundation for the Arts. At New York Foundation for the Arts
HIDEMI TAKAGI
IDENTITIES
IDENTITIES is a photography + interview project started with my family, a blend of Japanese and Haitian ancestry during pandemic, and quickly expanded to portraying other biracial/multiracial subjects. I seek to envision deep roots and explore issues of mixed-race identities.
I have been working with mixed-race teenagers for IDENTITIES with their parents’ consent. I take their portraits, interview them, ask questions about how they feel about being mixed-race, their experience and dream. I chose to work with this age group because teens today are more politically engaged, and they are our future. I worked with kids who predominantly lived in NY, and additionally, NJ, FL, Mn, and Japan so far. I am creating complex and whimsically self-costuming images of mixed-race life, its public and private faces, using my art as a tool to explore racial identity, race relations, public presentation of the self, and cultural norms.
This is a collaboration project with biracial/multiracial teenagers and their families. Since kids are underage, I ask their parents to get involved in the process of preparing the photoshoot. I spent one month to discuss how to take pictures before photoshoot. I request the subjects to wear at least one item that represents their ethnic cultures. I take photographs outside locations where they have strong connection. After the photoshoot, I interview them about their identities. The exhibition is a singular installation with photos are printed on the textile, and audio interviews playing by speakers are presented together.
Through the process of creating IDENTITIES, I search to visualize biracial/multiracial people’s roots and the cultural tendrils that have grown and intertwined from them, and addressing the issues of mixed-race identity, racism, and immigration in America and other countries.
