In Residence at Queenslab: February 15–27, 2021

Installation Viewing Hours at Queenslab, 1611 Cody Avenue, Ridgewood, NY: February 26–27, 2–7pm EST

Online Film Premieres: Tuesday, March 30 and Friday, April 2, 7pm EDT

During a residency hosted by The Kitchen at Queenslab, Moko Fukuyama will produce two new pieces as part of her project American Recordings, an ongoing series that reflects on the state of public discourse within the United States today. While in residence, the artist will stage and film two performances featuring music compositions by her collaborator Yo! Vinyl Richie. Visitors will be invited to view selections from the resulting footage displayed in corresponding installations in the Queenslab space on the 26th and 27th of February. Following the completion of the residency, the artist will create two films that combine scenes from the onsite performances with previously recorded material, which will premiere in an online screening event in late-March.

Amidst the current, compounding crises of public health, politics, systemic racism, and the environment, the project asks: What forms of dialogue are possible in the face of heightened polarization and mandated social isolation? How does the potential for an exchange of perspectives vary across local, regional, and national levels? Fukuyama sets out to explore these questions in a quasi-documentary style, stemming from a series of trips she has conducted across the United States to speak with people she meets through her personal networks or by happenstance. American Recordings unfolds as a series of acts, each consisting of performances, installations, and films. At Queenslab, the artist will complete the initial sections—Act I: American Harvest and Act II: American Frequency.

Fukuyama’s approach to this endeavor is informed by her position as a Japanese citizen who has spent exactly half of her life to date in the United States. The first two acts ground the project in places that have shaped Fukuyama’s relationship to the country: Act I focuses on Iowa, the state where she first lived in the US as an exchange student, and Act II homes in on the city of Memphis, where she attended college and continues to visit regularly. Probing the boundaries between foreigner and citizen, visitor and resident, the artist examines how her experiences inform her ability to comment on or have conversations about the national landscape. 

In American Recordings, Fukuyama fuses the real-world source material she has captured on her travels with imaginative elements in order to conjure up alternative models for discourse between individuals and among groups. The resulting films will weave together the personal perspectives of people Fukuyama interviewed on her trips, an autofictional monologue by the artist, and vignettes from her collaborative artistic processes at Queenslab. In contrast to the traditional discursive aims of articulating a straightforward ideological position or reconciling differences of opinion between subjects, these multi-layered portrayals present associative webs that hold disparate people, places, and ideas in relation to one another. American Recordings offers one response to the breakdown of dialogue that is so prevalent in the public sphere today: the project instead intentionally lingers in the spaces between divergent viewpoints, mining the interstices for their potential to generate more nuanced exchanges.

Curated by Alison Burstein.

More information about the installations related to American Recordings, Act I: American Harvest and Act II: American Frequency is available on the installation guide here.

Moko Fukuyama, American Recordings, Act I: American Harvest, 2021
HD, color, sound, 57:40 minutes
Music composition by Yo! Vinyl Richie

The first film of Fukuyama’s American Recordings series, Act I: American Harvest, centers on Iowa—where Fukuyama lived from 1997–1998 as a high school exchange student from Japan. She returned in the week leading up to the 2020 presidential election, intentionally reconnecting with the state at a pivotal moment in American history. Inaugurating the exploration of American public discourse that she pursues throughout the acts of American Recordings, Fukuyama’s film questions how the dual registers of personal experience and national political stakes impact the ways people engage in conversations with one another. 

In the making of Act I: American Harvest, Fukuyama traveled to cities and towns across Iowa to speak with a range of individuals, including those she already knew and those she met in passing. The artist interweaves segments from these filmed discussions to propose an imagined dialogue among these dispersed—and, in many cases, divergent—voices. The result is at once a record of perspectives that pertain to the current period in the United States and a reflection on the throughlines of national mythology that have persisted for generations. 

Throughout the film, Fukuyama offers a meditation on her own position as both listener and narrator. Adopting the style of the popular Lo-Fi Girl YouTube channel, the artist portrays herself articulating her thoughts at a secluded desk next to a window. The aperture beside her offers views into scenes and landscapes that run in parallel with her monologue, including the performance LEVEL PLAYING FIELD (2021) that Fukuyama staged during her residency at Queenslab. From this vantage, Fukuyama draws out connections across the collective exchange while contending with the limits of what can be communicated between subject positions.

Click here to watch a conversation between Fukuyama, Yo! Vinyl Richie, and curator Alison Burstein about American Recordings, Act I: American Harvest.

Moko Fukuyama in collaboration with Yo! Vinyl Richie, American Recordings, Act II: American Frequency, 2021
HD, color, sound, 49:03 minutes

In the second film of her American Recordings series, Fukuyama situates her inquiries into national and interpersonal dialogue in Memphis, Tennessee, a city where she has enduring personal ties. Distinct from the composite portrait Fukuyama creates of Iowa in Act I: American Harvest, Act II: American Frequency portrays its location through the lived experience of one long-time resident, Keland Nance. With this shift in scale—from a collective to an individual subject—the artist similarly adjusts her own role. Rather than surveying the space between the perspectives of many different people, Fukuyama focuses on her personal connection to Nance, with whom she has been in conversation since 2014.

The film is centered around a series of exchanges between the pair, which the artist has been recording since a chance encounter with Nance on his property in South Memphis seven years ago. During her residency at Queenslab, Fukuyama expanded on her dialogues with Nance by inviting DJ and turntablist Yo! Vinyl Richie to take part in a performance involving three video channels that established a feedback loop between all three parties. Scenes from this live event appear throughout the film, showing Yo Vinyl! Richie composing a soundscape in response to interview footage of Nance while Fukuyama films the DJ in real-time. Merging the three video feeds into one, the resulting film Act II: American Frequency presents Nance, Fukuyama, and Yo! Vinyl Richie communicating with one another fluidly across the shifting positions of subject and narrator, speaker and respondent, creator and viewer.

To frame the film, Fukuyama reflects on the ethics of storytelling within a city that is both laden with historical associations and subject to romanticization. Recognizing how such representations shaped her own initial, idealized impressions of Memphis, the artist endeavors to separate the narrative she conveys in Act II: American Frequency from the familiar pattern of superficial accounts. The interplay that Fukuyama sets up between herself, Nance, and Yo! Vinyl Richie allows for each contributor to add their own unique dimension to the film via their respective forms of dialogue, sound, or moving image. Through this medium, identity, and location-spanning collaboration, Fukuyama underscores the invisible qualities—the frequencies—that affect the ways individuals connect with one another and with their surroundings.

Click here to watch a conversation between Fukuyama, Yo! Vinyl Richie, and curator Alison Burstein about American Recordings, Act II: American Frequency.

Production Credits

Act I: American Harvest  in collaboration with Yo! Vinyl Richie

Filmed and edited by Moko Fukuyama

Music composition: Yo! Vinyl Richie

Scriptwriting: Moko Fukuyama and Michael Mount

Script editors: Aaron Suggs, Lesley Ann Ferguson, and Alison Burstein

Animation, drone, and high-speed camera work: Haoyan of America

Performance production: Andy Barrett, Nana Hiramatsu, Joel Morrison, and Aaron Suggs

Production manager: Zack Tinkelman

Production coordinator: Mariana Catalina

Lighting design: Mike Faba

Stylist: Wieteke Heldens 

Act II: American Frequency  in collaboration with Yo! Vinyl Richie

Filmed and edited by Moko Fukuyama

Music composed and performed by Yo! Vinyl Richie

Scriptwriting: Moko Fukuyama and Michael Mount

Script editors:  Aaron Suggs, Lesley Ann Ferguson, and Alison Burstein 

Second camera operator: Aaron Suggs

Production manager: Zack Tinkelman

Production coordinator: Mariana Catalina

Lighting design: Mike Faba

Sound engineer: Andrya Ambro

Sound editor: Anthony Fraser

Stylist: Wieteke Heldens 

Special thanks to Keland Nance

Images: 1) Moko Fukuyama, American Recordings, Act I: American Harvest, February 16, 2021. Performance view at Queenslab. Photo ©2021 Paula Court. 2) Moko Fukuyama in collaboration with Yo! Vinyl Richie, American Recordings, Act II: American Frequency, February 20, 2021. Performance view at Queenslab. Photo ©2021 Paula Court.


Moko Fukuyama: American Recordings is made possible with support from Lambent Foundation Fund of Tides Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, and Joseph and Joan Cullman Foundation for the Arts; and in part by public funds from New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. 

Season programming is also made possible with support from The Kitchen’s Board of Directors and The Kitchen Leadership Fund. To learn more about the Leadership Fund, click here.