60 minute multi-media installation, 2021
watercolour on paper and digital animation

Autumn Strawberry is an animated multi-media installation which was one of the artistic outcomes of my 2019 TechLab residency at the Surrey Art Gallery. During the residency I began conducting interviews and conversations with nisei-born Japanese Canadian elders who were children during the time their parents and grandparents had owned and worked on strawberry and other types of agricultural farms across the Fraser Valley area. These sites included Strawberry Hill/Surrey, Mission, Haney (Maple Ridge), and Langley. Combining the memory work of archival research and these collected stories of life on the berry farms, Autumn Strawberry weaves together a series of short stories imagined through the 60 minute hand painted and digital animation. The successes of Japanese settler farmers were perceived as a ‘threat’ to the economy by some, and as a result racial animosity and discrimination was directed at these farmers and the wider community. The stories gleaned from these conversations point to family life in the home as headed by mothers of the household, and the survival of these berry farmers.

Set in both the past and future of a place once called Strawberry Hill or Chicken Mura, this multi-media installation combines the re-imagining of Japanese settler families and their livelihood making homes and setting up a working life on the berry farms on the west coast of B.C. in the pre-war era prior to Japanese Canadian internment. The animation housed inside the theatrical setting casts light and shadow onto sculptural tree stumps and the abandoned architecture of once lived-in farm homes. Their ghostly presences and shadows re-present the hope and spirit of a ‘dream of riches’ which originally brought them to Canada, but also brings to light the harsh reality of their participation in the deforestation processes called ‘tree-stumping’ to clear the land so that they could plant their berry fields. The multi-channel animation moves from everyday life on the farms to a creaturely, future world of trees and strange insects. The sound of an old persistent radio can be heard playing, predicting and broadcasting the dangers and fears on the Japanese Canadian body, as hardworking mothers strive to keep multi-generational families alive by preparing food for the coming winter months.

The title ‘Autumn Strawberry’ is taken from the name of the strawberry crop that would fruit in cold winters through a hothouse technique mastered by Issei pioneer Bunjiro Sakon.

Animation Digital Compositing & Studio Assistance: Cherry Wen Wen Lu
Editor: Candelario Andrade
Sound Design and Composition: Nancy Tam
Carpentry: Minoru Yamamoto
New Media Playback System Designer/Projection Advisor: Sammy Chien
Taiko: E. Kage
Shakuhachi: Takeo Yamashiro
Accordion Mishelle Cuttler
Foley: Cindy Kao
Violin: Molly MacKinnon
Lighting Design: James Proudfoot

Choreography (Performance): Lisa Mariko Gelley
Textile/Costume Design: Leah Weinstein
Website: Birkwerk Design

Image #2-4 Courtesy of Surrey Art Gallery, Photographer Dennis Ha

This project was created with the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the British Columbia Arts Council.

Click here to visit the project website.