Through my work, I pose questions regarding an individual’s perceived knowledge of gender, race, and sexuality. For the past several years, I have been investigating the psychology behind the unique social behaviors and fantasies of Japanese women, and the relationship of two imperialisms, Western and Japanese. My critical view of the culture, religion and traditions of Japan was formed during my childhood in Osaka, where I first observed the unequal status of “Others” – women and minority groups, immigrants from other Asian countries and descendents of the lowest classes. In addition, growing up in the final years of the Japanese postwar economic miracle, I experienced the social and cultural stimulation, as well as the confusion, of the rapid absorption of Western values by Japanese tradition. Lastly, my recent move to the U.S. has added a global context and an external point of view to the construct of my examination of Japanese culture. One of my recent works, Still Life with Shin, Soe, and Hikae, 2008, is a photographic installation representing the hybridization of cultures. The photograph (48”x72”), is a larger than life size flower arrangement of hybrid and deformed artificial flowers, set against a black background and hung on an earth green wall. The image is a composite of Ikebana (Japanese flower arrangement) and 17th century Dutch Still-life. Both styles signify the impermanence of the temporal world, but the irony is that the work also represents the excesses produced by both western capitalism and contemporary Japanese consumerism. In the enlarged image, the fabricated flowers, captured in real time, become tactile and alive. However, the impossibility of the realistic appearance of the flowers adds an uncanny feeling and is highly paradoxical. In order to speak to a broad audience with a variety of cultural backgrounds, I often incorporate historical elements and popular culture in my work. I’m especially interested in media culture, and in Japanese TV in particular. Since the Japanese TV audience is the largest in the world, TV has a huge influence on the society as a whole. Through the programs - variety shows, dramas, anime, and commercials - TV provides the models of gender and the criteria for morality. In fact, the traditional gender roles of Japan’s patriarchal social structure are being constantly reinforced by the male dominated TV industry. Despite the recent global popularity of Japanese anime and fashion, the meaning is transformed once it leaves Japan. I attempt to reveal the original. For example, That’s Just How I Express My Love, 2006, is a video/audio installation. It exposes the Japanese male fetish for youth and the trend towards sadomasochism in popular culture that leads to the infantilization of Japanese women. The video, projected on a gallery wall, shows pink and white flower buds being bound with a wire for a bouquet and represents Japanese “bud” culture, a metaphor for innocence, purity, and virginity. From audio speakers, a young girl’s cheerful voice sings a Japanese anime theme song. On the floor is a monitor showing text done in white icing on a pink cake. This text, which is an English translation of the anime theme lyrics, reveals the highly sexual nature of the song. And, audiences are left to put together the elements, videos and audio, to find the meaning. Another example using TV culture is Flora, 2008. This work challenges the individual’s socially constructed ideas of femininity and sexuality through the animated images of thirteen hand fabricated, sexually suggestive, flowers in eroticized, simulated time-lapse motion. For the work, I placed six CRT monitors on the floor of a gallery space facing in slightly different directions. Each monitor showed the same thirteen short videos of the individual flowers. Because the videos are started randomly, images of different flowers appear and disappear from monitor to monitor, causing the viewer’s eyes to shift about the space under the control of the media. The goal of my art practice is to expose the social stereotypes of and blur the boundaries of dualistic ideas of gender, race, and sexuality.