Directed and Produced by Joelle Mercedes
Audio: "Sovereign" by Joelle Mercedes
**additional audio selected by Jared Brown**

Several Collisions in an Origin (02/27/2018)

As part of the culmination of Little Tokyo Service Center's "2019 +Lab Residency", cog•nate collective and traci kato kiriyama collaborated to host "Letter Reading + Writing" sessions to reflect on the resonance between the historical displacement and incarceration of Japanese-American families during WWII, and contemporary policies of detention and family separation at the US/Mexico border currently impacting the lives of those seeking asylum.  

During these sessions, Little Tokyo community members read aloud letters written by asylum seekers held at the Otay Mesa Detention Center, and wrote letters in return, which were sent to the Detention Center in partnership with the organization Detainee Allies.

Recordings of these readings were produced through the sessions, were compiled and broadcast over a pirate FM radio frequency in Little Tokyo as part of FUTURE ECHOES. This is an abridged segment of the longer piece that was originally broadcast.

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FUTURE ECHOES is a site-specific sound installation reflecting on the ways past, present and future inhabitants of the First Street North block in Little Tokyo have confronted displacement, and resisted erasure.

The project culls together sounds excavated through research, speculative fiction written by local authors and recordings produced by Cog•nate Collective in collaboration with traci kato kiriyama and other community partners throughout their time as +Lab Artists-in-Residence – with Visual Communications as host organization.

For more information about the LTSC's +Lab residency, visit:
https://www.ltsc.org/lababout/

Future Echoes

Somos un colectivo de arte binacional analizando e intentando transformar el tipo de intercambio social, cultural y económico que ocurre a través de la frontera entre Estados Unidos y México por medio de la cultura popular.

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We are a binational art collective analyzing and seeking to transform the types of social, cultural and economic exchanges that occur across the U.S.-Mexico border through popular culture.

Letters To/From Detention [Segment] | ©© + traci kato kiriyama

©© | Cog•nate Collective

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