Artist Kristine Aono (b. 1960)is participating in a show at the Block Museum, If You Remember, I’ll Remember. The show is an invitation to reflect on the past while contemplating the present through works of art exploring themes of love, mourning, war, relocation, internment, resistance, and civil rights in 19th and 20th century North America. 

Feb. 4, the public is invited to an Artist Conversation at  2p.m. The contemporary artists in the exhibition use poetic strategies to address issues of war, racism, and xenophobia in American history. Exhibition curator Janet Dees and participating artists Kristine Aono, Samantha Hill, Dario Robleto, and Marie Watt will take part in a presentation and panel discussion on the show’s crucial themes.

Aono's "sculpture and installations are narrative in nature, reflecting my identity as a Sansei, a third generation Japanese-American. I examine my hybrid cultural identity through topics such as acculturation, racial and sexual stereotyping, the WWII internment camps, and the history of my family in America."

This interview talks about her installation: Deru Kugi Wa Utareru: The Nail That Sticks Up The Farthest Takes The Most Pounding, 
120,313 Nails, documents, wood, styrofoam, burlap sacks on display through June.

Deru Kugi Wa Utareru is a Japanese proverb which can be translated as "The nail that sticks up the farthest takes the most pounding." When I came across this saying, it helped to explain how 120,313 people of Japanese ancestry, 2/3 of whom were American citizens, could so obediently submit to being incarcerated during WWII. The proverb and its translation wrap around the room. The walls are wallpapered with copies of letters from my maternal grandfather and documents of testimony by former internees given before congress. Stippled into the walls is a grid of 120,313 holes, one for each person interned. Rusted nails are pounded into the grid, forming a large American flag on the main wall. The remaining nails would fill the walls. Visitors are encouraged to add nails to the wall in memory of or to honor those who were incarcerated. By the end of the show's run, thousands of nails were added.

The public is also invited to Day of Remembrance 75th Anniversary on Saturday, February 18, 2 p.m.

February 19, 2017, marks the 75th anniversary of the signing of the executive order which called for the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Join us to commemorate this historic occasion through an interactive, intergenerational program. The afternoon will be spent sharing stories of internment, and commemorating this historically relevant anniversary.

Kristine Aono's art retells the nightmarish tales of Japanese Internment Camps

In this episode of The Weekly, The Daily attends the Block Museum's panel on artist William Blake's work and how it relates to activism in the 1960s. Audio Editor Sam Bernitz heads down into the University archives to bust some Northwestern myths. 

On Week on the Street, students discuss homecoming ... and garden gnomes.

Sam Bernitz, Molly Glick, Natalie Shilati, Marissa Hattler, and Hannah Collins contributed to this episode.

The Weekly Podcast: Myth Busting and Activism in the 1960s

An Opera of the World
(Manthia Diawara, 2017, Portugal/USA/Mali, digital, 70 min.)

A world-renowned scholar, filmmaker, and theorist of cultural hybridity, Manthia Diawara left Mali at the age of 19, emigrating to France and later to the United States. He returned to Mali in 2008 to film rehearsals for Bintou Were, a Sahel Opera that tells the story of northward migration. Diawara frames this moving performance between interviews (including discussions with filmmaker Alexander Kluge, novelist Fatou Diome and sociologist Nicole Lapierre), personal commentary, and archival footage that documents the cycles of migration throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. The result is a cinematic essay as free-ranging, and as inspiring, as the borderless society he imagines.

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Part of the film series
Personal Passages: African Filmmakers in Europe

Personal Passages responds to the concurrent Block exhibitions CARAVANS OF GOLD and ISAAC JULIEN: THE LEOPARD (WESTERN UNION: SMALL BOATS) through a series of films which illuminate 20th and 21st century migrant experiences across the Mediterranean. While dozens of films have been made by European filmmakers addressing the challenges faced by refugees and immigrants to Europe, the films in this series, made by Tunisian, Mauritanian and Malian emigré filmmakers, all provide more intimate perspectives on these experiences of displacement and diaspora.

Filmmaker's Talkback: Manthia Diawara on "An Opera of the World" (2017)

Chicago artists committed to justice using art as a mechanism for change came together at the Block for a moderated conversation. DOROTHY BURGE and MARY PATTEN of Chicago Torture Justice Memorials, SARAH ROSS and ERIC BLACKMON  of Prison and Neighborhood Arts Project, and KEVIN KAEMPF of Lucky Pierre spoke of their work both as individuals and in collaboration, followed by dialogue moderated by RISA PULEO, Ph.D. Candidate in Art History and curator of the exhibition "Walls Turned Sideways: Artists Confront the Justice System," at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston including work by the artists/collectives in conversation here, plus 40 others nationally.

This event kicked off the annual IMAGINING AMERICA gathering on art and justice "Transformative Imaginations: Decarceration and Liberatory Futures", which took place in Chicago October 19 -21, 2018.

This conversation was part of the 2018-19 SECURITY Dialogues, a year-long conversation about struggles over security from humanistic perspectives, co-presented by the Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities in partnership with multiple Northwestern departments and programs.

Eric Blackmon & Sarah Ross on Artistic Collaborations with Chicago Inmates

Producer/Host: Gina Logue
Guest: Dr. Ron Messier

Synopsis: The professor emeritus of history describes his contributions to the "Caravans of Gold" exhibit at the National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C.

MTSU On the Record: Caravans of Gold

The Block is a dynamic, imaginative, and innovative teaching and learning resource for Northwestern University and its surrounding communities, featuring a global exhibition program that crosses time periods and cultures and serves as a springboard for thought-provoking discussions relevant to our lives today.

Filmmaker's Talkback: Manthia Diawara on "An Opera of the World" (2017)

Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University

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