Mitchell Akiyama & Emma Nishimura: Paradise

United Contemporary is proud to present Paradise, an exhibition by Mitchell Akiyama and Emma Nishimura. Lifelong family friends, the artists’ first collaboration takes the form of a multimedia installation responding to their Japanese-Canadian families’ shared histories of internment during the Second World War. Taking place concurrently will be a presentation of selected works by Norman Takeuchi and Akira Yoshikawa in our adjoining gallery, in an exhibition program that will explore the enduring impact of the wartime period on Japanese Canadian artists across generations.

The exhibition’s title, Paradise, refers to a childhood summer day that has become family lore. Akiyama, Nishimura, and their siblings spent an afternoon catching frogs and built an elaborate structure out of sand for their captives, which they called “Frog Paradise.” For four mixed-race children, raised with senses of safety and belonging that were in stark contrast to their Japanese grandparents’ upbringings, this moment was a utopia. This was less so for the frogs, who likely didn’t live out the day. For Akiyama and Nishimura, this experience led to the realization that one person or group’s utopia might be another’s nightmare. Ostensibly seeking to maintain a largely white, settler nation’s safety, the Canadian government forcibly relocated and interned its Japanese-Canadian citizens, many of whom had never visited Japan. The various prints, sculptures, and video works included in Paradise represent Akiyama and Nishimura’s efforts to understand the complexities and paradoxes of this legacy as it moves and shifts across generations.

Thanks to a grant from the JC Legacies Society, Akiyama and Nishimura were able to visit locations in British Columbia to document sites where their grandparents were interned to inform their research and produce this project. 

This exhibition is presented in dialogue with Norman Takeuchi and Akira Yoshikawa: Selected Works.