Artist talk and discussion with Kaori Nakasone (photographer) and Mayumo Inoue (scholar) from Naha, Okinawa & Tokyo), moderated by Nine Fumi Yamamoto-Masson. Presented as part of the Naka Internationalist Liberation Archive (NILA) project
To situate internationalist engagement with the Palestinian struggle among comrades in and from the region known as “Japan”, a basic understanding of the Okinawan struggle and of the entanglements of Japanese and “US” imperialism is essential. Anti-imperial struggles in Okinawa have historically confronted both “USAmerican” and Japanese imperial formations, which position “Okinawa” as a military hub and site of developmental enclosure. At the same time these struggles have often sought to go beyond the local patriarchal nation as the limited horizon for liberatory politics.
Kaori Nakasone will discuss her photography as it seeks to go beyond the ways many photographers have fixed the image(s) of “Okinawa” as the convenient index for the (self-)orientalized Other within “Japan”, and introduce Kobunesha (”Small Boat Press” in English), an Okinawa-based small art press she founded. Nakasone’s presentation will be followed by a conversation with Mayumo Inoue (scholar of art, aesthetics, and imperial formations across East Asia and the “U.S.”) and by a discussion with the audience. Nine Fumi Yamamoto-Masson will moderate the evening.
The event will be held in spoken English; free entrance (donations for friends in Gaza are welcome). The event space itself is wheelchair accessible (ground floor) but the bathroom is not.