[su_carousel source=”media: 38942,38943,38944,38945″ limit=”65″ link=”lightbox” width=”800″ height=”540″ responsive=”no” items=”1″]<\/p>\n
<\/b>Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik, who is an Indian and Japanese-Colombian American, had lots of questions regarding her family history, just as any other multiracial person would. The Oakland-based artist\u2019s new project, appropriately titled \u201cThe Places Where the Answers Were: Archive of Dreams\u201d currently on display at YBCA\u2019s Bay Area Now exhibit, led her on the path to the very answers she sought.<\/p>\n
The project, a family archive brimming with photos, text and audio, was set on display at Bay Area Now nearly 50 years after her parents arrived to the United States in 1969, astonishingly on the very same day (May 31), easily marking that day as one of the most significant in her family history. \u201cThey remember that date more than they remember their wedding anniversary,\u201d she recalled, laughing.<\/p>\n
Bhaumik\u2019s project specifically focuses on her mother\u2019s journey to the United States as a Colombian-born Japanese woman, a large part of that journey having been documented by her mother herself. Bhaumik credits her mother as the reason why she is an artist today, and she used this project as an excuse to take it upon herself to fill in the spaces that her mother\u2019s photos left behind.<\/p>\n
After uncovering these old photos from the family archive in Southern California \u201caka the garage,\u201d Bhaumik says she began asking her mother questions about her life as a Japanese woman in Colombia. Inspired by her mother\u2019s narrative and photography, she set out to purchase the same model camera that her mother bought in the United States in an attempt to witness her mother\u2019s old home through her eyes.<\/p>\n
Bhaumik went on to describe how her mother first developed an interest in photography and how art played an imperative role in her mother\u2019s migration: \u201cWhen she applied for her student visa, she had to choose a subject that you couldn\u2019t study in your country of origin. Photography wasn\u2019t a subject that you could study in Colombia at the time, so she listed it as her reason for having to come to America.\u201d<\/p>\n
Using the self portraits taken on her mother\u2019s camera that had been lost along the way, Bhaumik was able to locate the exact Nikkormat model of the camera and document the places in which her mother had grown up.<\/p>\n
Bhaumik explains that her mother often \u201cfelt very isolated being the only Asian girl in her school and found that art provided her with a portal to a new world.\u201d This along with the interviews she held with her mother\u2019s sisters encouraged Bhaumik to dig deeper into her mother\u2019s history\u2014from her Japanese ancestors\u2019 migration in the mid-late 1800s to Colombia fleeing war and famine in search of better farming opportunities, to her eventual migration in hopes of realizing her dream of coming to the United States.<\/p>\n
In fact, the title of Bhaumik\u2019s project \u201cArchive of Dreams\u201d is rooted in many different uses of the word \u201cdream.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was thinking about dreams as both the confusion and symbolism that arises in dreams when you\u2019re asleep, as well as the DREAMers and their experiences with migration,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n
The theme of migration has been constant in all of Bhaumik\u2019s work along with the themes of diaspora and identity. She said her work addresses how we see ourselves as different from or similar to one another as well as where we intersect\u2014concepts that those who identify as mixed-race face on a regular basis.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe majority of people of Japanese descent are mixed. What does that mean as far as identity?\u201d she asked. \u201cWhat does it mean for Japanese-Latin Americans who migrated during a very particular period of time? What does it mean for the creation of an identity for all of us? What do we hold on to? What do we let go of? And what do we create out of that?\u201d<\/p>\n
Looking to the future Bhaumik plans to create an archive of her Indian heritage stemming from her father\u2019s history. \u201cMy grandfather on my dad\u2019s side was an Indian freedom fighter during the fight for independence from the British,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
One of the driving purposes behind Bhaumik\u2019s work, however, is to shed light on the similarities in our differences, in hopes that it will lead to progression:<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the reasons why I do this work is to create solidarity around issues of immigration and migration. I believe that\u2019s really important because immigrant communities are always intentionally kept apart in this way that … reinforces the notion that if you are a Spanish-speaking immigrant, then you have these problems, and if you are an Asian immigrant, then you have these problems. And it turns out that a lot of the time, immigrants from different ethnicities share the same problems. This question of access, mobility, safety and refuge\u2014all of these issues are issues of survival and if we start to recognize where our histories are shared, my hope is that we can actually see beyond what\u2019s keeping us apart. I think that\u2019s the agency that helps us gain actual traction against our deeply rooted struggles.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik\u2019s \u201cThe Places Where the Answers Were: Archive of Dreams\u201d will remain on display in YBCA\u2019s Bay Area Now exhibition now through March 24, 2019.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[su_carousel source=”media: 38942,38943,38944,38945″ limit=”65″ link=”lightbox” width=”800″ height=”540″ responsive=”no” items=”1″] Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik, who is an Indian and Japanese-Colombian American, had lots of questions regarding her family history, just as any other multiracial person would. The Oakland-based artist\u2019s new project, appropriately titled \u201cThe Places Where the Answers Were: Archive of Dreams\u201d currently on display at YBCA\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":38943,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3535],"tags":[17136,17138,17140],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-38940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film","tag-sita-kuratomi-bhaumik","tag-the-places-where-the-answers-were-archive-of-dreams","tag-ybcas-bay-area-now","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n