Carrying roots
Carrying roots
Performance for MassQ Ball 2025: Color
The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, Jamaica Plain, MA. October 4, 2025
The Arnold Arboretum sits on land long inhabited by Indigenous Peoples, most recently the Massachusett Tribe, and on property purchased with wealth from goods produced by enslaved persons.
The performance reflected my own journey between Japan and the U.S., and took place between two sites where I installed We are. The performance included my carrying bark and leaves from one section to another, leaving what I brought from the Japanese Hinoki area in the Western Red Cedar section, and vice versa, recalling my own travels between two countries. But perhaps, the most important thing we carry with us is our roots when we move from one country to another. The performance also included exchange of breath between trees and myself—each exhale from me is “inhaled” by trees and become oxygen for us to inhale again. It was a way to honor this invisible exchange and our breathing and living together.