• Tina Takemoto

  • 2016

Artist's Website

Grant Summary
Support for the third in a trilogy of experimental films about queer Japanese life during American wartime imprisonment.
Keywords
Artist Statement
I am a multimedia artist exploring race, queer identity, and memory through performance and experimental video. My work focuses on hidden dimensions of same sex intimacy and queer sexuality in Japanese American history. I have received grants from James Irvine Foundation, the Fleishhacker Foundation, and San Francisco Arts Commission. My films have screened at Frameline, Outfest, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Rio Gay Film Festival, MIX Milano, Seoul's International Women's Film Festival, and Austin Gay & Lesbian International Film Festival, where I received Best Experimental Jury Award. I am associate professor at California College of the Arts and co-founder of Queer Conversations on Culture and the Arts. I am completing a trilogy of queer camp films featuring fantasies of homoerotic breadmaking, butch bentos, and femme fish filleting inspired by three Japanese immigrants who survived the isolation, humiliation, and heteronormativity of life in the American wartime camps.

  • Looking for Jiro 2011, Tina Takemoto, Performance still. Photo by Maxwell Leung. Courtesy of the artist.

  • Looking for Jiro 2011, Tina Takemoto, Performance still. Photo by Maxwell Leung. Courtesy of the artist.

  • Warning Shot 2015, Tina Takemoto, Video still. Courtesy of the artist.

  • Warning Shot 2015, Tina Takemoto, Video still. Courtesy of the artist.

  • On the Line 2018, Tina Takemoto, film still. Courtesy of the artist.

  • On the Line 2018, Tina Takemoto, film still. Courtesy of the artist.

  • On the Line 2018, Tina Takemoto, film still. Courtesy of the artist.