Rea Tajiri facts for kids

Rea Tajiri is an American artist who makes videos and films. She is also a screenwriter. She is well-known for her film History and Memory: For Akiko and Takashige (1991). This film tells a personal story.

Early Life and Education

Rea Tajiri was born in 1958 in Chicago, Illinois. Her father, Vincent Tajiri, helped start a magazine as its first photo editor. Her uncle, Shinkichi Tajiri, was a famous sculptor who lived in the Netherlands.

Tajiri studied at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). She earned two degrees there in art. In 1979, she moved to New York. There, she worked with The Kitchen, an art center.

Filmmaking Career

Rea Tajiri's video art has been shown in important art shows. These include the Whitney Biennial in 1989, 1991, and 1993. Her work has also been shown at many famous museums. These include The New Museum for Contemporary Art, The Museum of Modern Art, and The Guggenheim Museum. She also showed her films at The Walker Art Museum and the Pacific Film Archives. In 2015, Tajiri received the Pew Fellowship in the Arts. This is a special award for artists.

Key Films and Documentaries

Her film History and Memory: For Akiko and Takashige (1991) is a personal documentary. It explores the history of Japanese American internment. This was a time during World War II when Japanese Americans were forced to live in special camps. The film first showed at the 1991 Whitney Biennial. It won the Distinguished Achievement Award from the International Documentary Association. It also won a special award at the San Francisco International Film Festival in 1992. In 1992, it won "Best Experimental Video" at the Atlanta Film and Video Festival.

In 1993, Tajiri made Yuri Kochiyama: Passion for Justice. This was a documentary about Nisei Japanese American human rights activist Yuri Kochiyama. Tajiri worked with Pat Saunders to produce this film.

She also worked with Japanese Canadian writer Kerri Sakamoto. They wrote a story about a Japanese American girl growing up in Chicago in the 1970s. This became the film Strawberry Fields. The film was made in 1994 with money from several groups. These included the CPB and the NEA. The film stars Suzy Nakamura, James Sie, Chris Tashima, and Takayo Fischer. It was finished in 1997. It was shown at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival and the Los Angeles Film Festival. It was also chosen for the Venice International Film Festival. It won the Grand Prix at the Fukuoka Asian Film Festival.

Tajiri is now an Associate Professor at Temple University. She teaches students how to make documentaries there. She is currently working on a new documentary film. It is called Wisdom Gone Wild. This film is about her 16-year journey caring for her mother, who had dementia.

Filmmaking Style

Weaving Different Stories

Tajiri is known for being a groundbreaking documentary filmmaker. She skillfully combines different stories and ideas in her films. She uses old film clips and her own personal experiences.

Dreamlike Documentaries

Her film Strawberry Fields does not follow a simple, straight story. Instead, Tajiri uses a graceful and dreamlike style. This helps to show the shared memories of Japanese Americans during the war. She shows old, grainy photos and films. This helps the audience feel the main character's search for understanding.

Focus on Representation

Tajiri often looks at how Asian Americans are shown in movies and TV. In her film Off Limits (1988), she critiques how Hollywood showed the Vietnam War. She also looked at how Vietnamese people were shown. She used parts from other films and added her own words. This gave a voice to a Vietnamese character.

In History and Memory (1990), Tajiri explores how history is made and remembered. She uses a mix of personal memories and old media images. These images show the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

History and Memory Film Details

This experimental film shows the memories of Tajiri's mother from the war. The story is told through pieces of memory and family history. Tajiri presents the film in four ways:

• Events shown directly on camera.
• Events that are re-created.
• Events told through characters talking about their memories.
• Events that are known to have happened but are not shown.

As the narrator, Tajiri uses text and spoken words. This helps to make the purpose of the memories clear. Through this film, Tajiri showed that Japanese Americans were often missing from films. She brought attention to her family's past and culture. Tajiri also uses "absence" to show "presence." In History and Memory, characters who are not seen still have a big impact. Their memories are very important to the film's message. It is hard for a filmmaker to highlight something that is absent without confusing the audience. But Tajiri does this very well. This documentary won her the Distinguished Achievement Award. It also won a Special Jury Award from the San Francisco International Film Festival. Tajiri's unique filming style is clear in History and Memory. She sometimes distorts the camera view. This helps to show how memories are recalled.

Strawberry Fields Film Details

Strawberry Fields was made by Open City Films and ITVS. It first showed in Europe at the Venice International Film Festival. The film also won the Grand Prix at the Fukuoka Asian Film Festival.

Tajiri often focuses on the idea of Asian American identity in her films. This is different from just Asian American culture. In Strawberry Fields, Tajiri goes against what society expects. The main character, Irene, is a third-generation Japanese American woman. She openly shows her inner anger. In most of Tajiri's films, she brings attention to social issues. For example, in History and Memory, she highlights how Asian Americans, Latinos, and Black people struggled to fit into white American society.

Legacy and Impact

Rea Tajiri's work is studied in many university programs. These programs focus on documentaries and films by women. Tajiri brought attention to identity in filmmaking. She showed cultural tensions and curiosities. She did this to teach her audience through the stories in her films.

Filmography

Director

• Hitchcock Trilogy 1987
• Off Limits 1988
• History and Memory: For Akiko and Takashige 1992
• Yuri Kochiyama: Passion for Justice 1993
• Strawberry Fields 1997
• Little Murders 1999
• Aloha 2000
• Lordville 2014

Producer

• Strawberry Fields 1997
• Yuri Kochiyama: Passion for Justice 1999

Writer

• Strawberry Fields 1997

Actress

• Robot Stories 2003

Awards

• 1989 NEA Visual Arts Fellowship
• 1990 NEA Production Grant
• 1992 International Documentary Association, Distinguished Achievement Award – History and Memory
• 1992 San Francisco International Film Festival, Special Jury Award: New Visions Category -- History and Memory
• 1992 Atlanta Film & Video Festival, Best Experimental Video -- History and Memory
• 1993 NEA Visual Arts Fellowship
• 1994 NEA Production Grant
• 1998 Fukuoka Asian Film Festival, Grand Prix – Strawberry Fields
• 1992 Rockefeller Media Fellowship
• 1999 Rockefeller Media Fellowship
• 2000 New York Foundation for the Arts
• 2001 Smack Mellon Residency
• 2003 MacDowell Colony Residency
• 2015 Pew Fellowship in the Arts