care of — angela may

c/o

How do archives shape our sense of the past? How does our sense of the past shape our engagement with archives? What if archival encounters produce art about the past, rather than histories that recite it?

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c/o is a mixed media art project comprised of six portraits and one melody.* It was created for the public panel “I Know We’ll Meet Again”: Correspondence and the Forced Dispersal of Japanese Canadians, an event inspired by the online archival exhibit of the same name. The public panel invited four present-day Japanese Canadian community members to respond to letters written by six historic Japanese Canadian community members, whose letters are featured in the “I Know We’ll Meet Again” exhibit. By responding to these letters creatively rather than analytically, c/o seeks to raise questions about the past, its representation, and our relationship to it.

* Joel Sojonky supported the development of the c/o melody with editing and production assistance. To hear Joel's original compositions and support his music, visit his bandcamp by clicking here.

THE EXHIBIT

“I Know We’ll Meet Again”: Correspondence and the Forced Dispersal of Japanese Canadians is an online archival exhibit created by curators Mya Ballin and Sasha Gaylie. The exhibit features materials from the Joan Gillis fonds, housed in the University of British Columbia’s Rare Books and Special Collections. The main contents of the Joan Gillis fonds are letters written by Japanese Canadians in the 1940s, who were teenage school-mates and friends to Gillis at the time of writing. The “I Know We’ll Meet Again” exhibit centres letters written by Teruko Ikeda, Sumi Mototsune, Tad Nagamori, Yoshio Nakamura, Albert Ohama, and Jackie Takahashi. View the exhibit here.

THE PUBLIC PANEL

Inspired by the abovementioned exhibit, the public panel of the same name (“I Know We’ll Meet Again”: Correspondence and the Forced Dispersal of Japanese Canadians) took place on March 2, 2022, via Zoom. Hosted by the University of British Columbia (UBC) Library and the school’s Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies program, and moderated by PhD student Nicole Yakashiro, the panel featured a variety of perspectives: historian Laura Ishiguro, archivist Lisa Uyeda, PhD student and artist Angela May, and poet and playwright Carolyn Nakagawa were invited to share their responses to the “I Know We’ll Meet Again” exhibit. The panel was followed by a Q&A. View the panel here (accessible until March 24, 2022).