On Tuesday, June 26, join Crooked Tree Arts Center for the Coffee @ Ten lecture with the Good Hart Artist in Residence, Mami Takahashi.

Mami Takahashi is a Japanese interdisciplinary artist, who integrates traditional and contemporary approaches in ideas, methods, and media to address perspectives on foreignness and Americanness. As a non-native English user and recent immigrant to the U.S., she incorporates her cultural awkwardness, and her often clumsy English usage into visual practices. She shares the struggle nonnative English speakers face when communicating with native English speakers, and the limits imposed through these interactions. Takahashi uses multiple methods of art-making, such as painting, craft-making, digital video, performance, language based works, and sound, frequently creating large-scale installations that explore the boundaries of social norms between cultures.

Takahashi received her MFA in Contemporary Studio Practice from Portland State University (Portland, OR) in 2013. She earned a BFA in Japanese Painting from Joshibi University of Art and Design ( Japan), where she was awarded a prize for her thesis work. Takahashi also obtained an Associate of Fine Art in Aesthetics from Aoyama-gakuinWomen’s College (Tokyo, Japan). Currently, she is a research scholar at the University of Oregon, focusing on the conceptual understanding of Japanese aesthetics. Her work has been collected and exhibited internationally.

During the lecture, Takahashi will talk about her art-making practice in Japan and her work in the U.S. She will discuss what she has discovered about differences and similarities between the two cultures, and explain the project she is working on during her Good Hart Artist Residency.

For more information, contact the Crooked Tree Arts Center at 231-347-4337 or visit www.crookedtree.org.