“Bend” deals with the Japanese American internment camps, identity, art, and the fragility of memory. Kimi recently received a grant from the Japanese American Citizens League to bring “Bend” to colleges and universities for free in the New England area around the Day of Remembrance (February 19, 2016). 

If memory forms our personal identity and shared memory forms our cultural and even racial identity, what does it mean when memories and our homes are lost? “Bend" explores this question by examining the lives of two men interned in a Japanese American Relocation Camp during World War II: the artist’s father, an Asian art historian who is currently suffering from dementia, and the subject of his research, Isamu Noguchi, a half-Japanese-half-American sculptor. Using sand as her canvas and brooms, rakes, and blocks of wood as her brushes, Kimi Maeda transforms image after image, calling to mind the Arizona desert where Robert Maeda was interned, Noguchi’s landscape designs, as well as Zen rock gardens. She combines live feed video projection of these drawings with archival footage so that in the end all that is left is the audience’s memory of the performance. 

For more details, please visit Kimi’s website: http://www.kimimaeda.com.