Kellen Hatanaka – BOOOOOOOM! – CREATE * INSPIRE * COMMUNITY * ART * DESIGN * MUSIC * FILM * PHOTO * PROJECTS

Japanese Canadian artist Kellen Hatanaka tackles difficulties of identification and the Asian Canadian knowledge by means of a multidisciplinary practice consisting of portray and sculpture. His most latest work centres all around the tale of the Vancouver Asahi baseball crew which emerged from humble beginnings in 1914 and have been active until eventually 1941 when they were disbanded owing to the compelled removing of Canadians of Japanese ancestry from coastal British Columbia subsequent functions of the 2nd Planet War. The reduction of the Asahi was a loss of Japanese Canadian id and a image of hope for equality and belonging. For Hatanaka, the increase and slide of the crew serves as a potent metaphor for the decline of pride, id, and culture professional by many Japanese Canadians:

“The Japanese Canadian Internment Period has experienced enduring outcomes on potential generations. As a yonsei or fourth generation descendant, I am checking out the decline of Japanese lifestyle, identification, and custom in my very own practical experience and via my artmaking. With this get the job done I aspire to handle the absence of aspirational Asian figures within well-liked tradition, precisely in the canon of western portray and winner underrepresented narratives. While the subject make any difference is rooted in the previous, the operate explores up to date concerns of identity, race, inherited trauma, xenophobia, implicit bias, the lookup for belonging, the strength of community and the consequences of decline of local community.”

Hatanaka’s do the job was not long ago picked up by the Toronto Blue Jays who developed a quick film to be aired on the Jumbotron at the Rogers Centre. The movie introduces Hatanaka and celebrates the record of the Asahi group in honour of Asian Heritage thirty day period. This year also marks the 80 calendar year anniversary of Japanese Canadian Internment and the 20 year Anniversary of the Asahi currently being honoured at the Skydome on the celebration of their induction into the Canadian Baseball Corridor of Fame. See more photos from Hatanaka’s venture with the Jays as properly as his most current exhibition, Safe and sound|House, underneath.