WorkSite:
views from VA studios across the country and beyond
Visiting Artist: Yoshie Sakai, Gardena, CA, United States
Since moving back home to live with my now 87-year-old mother in 2014 to save money on Los Angeles rent for living and studio space, what you are seeing here is my garage (9 feet wide and 16 feet deep) that I use as my green screen studio. My work is multidisciplinary, and my ongoing project since 2014 has been an East Asian/Asian American hybrid soap opera video and installation series called “KOKO’s Love”. Loosely autobiographically based on my internal conflict of being 1.5 generation Japanese American—the “.5” feeling of not belonging to either the first generation or the second, I felt it was important to write, produce, direct, and play every character. This is where the garage green screen studio becomes a major player in my performative creative process.
When it is time to use the studio as a sculpture/installation making space, then plastic drop cloths come out to cover the flooring. There is a lot of setting up, taking down, covering, and cleaning from one form or stage to another. I do my best with the space I have, and always crossing my fingers and toes that it will be all right. I believe it has been.
Jess Pope (S 21)
Student Nicholas Lima (W 22) and Artist-Mentor Faith Wilding