Future Echoes
2019 / 2022
Sound Sculpture + Vinyl Record + Liner Notes + Facsimiles of Letters + Mural, Dimensions variable
FUTURE ECHOES is a site-specific sound installation reflecting on the ways past, present and future inhabitants of the First Street North block in Little Tokyo have confronted displacement, and resisted erasure.
The project culls together sounds excavated through research, speculative fiction written by local authors and recordings produced by Cog•nate Collective in collaboration with traci kato kiriyama, the LTSC Youth Group and other community partners throughout their time as +Lab Artists-in-Residence – with Visual Communications as host organization.
Throughout the month of August 2019, the public experienced this work on the First Street North block by tuning their radios to 87.9FM. Cog•nate also hosted Listening + Recording Sessions, providing interactive opportunities for the public to engage with the audio and participate in the recording process.
A central component of the project consisted of exploring the resonances between historical accounts of displacement/detention suffered by Japanese-Americans during WWII, and contemporary experiences of Central-American asylum-seekers.
During one Recording Session for the project – organized in collaboration with traci kato kiriyama – the public was invited to engage with and read-aloud letters written by Japanese Americans detained in concentration camps during WWII, and letters written by migrants currently in detention centers at the US/Mexico border (samples below). Readings were recorded and broadcast as part of the project (selection below).
Additionally, visitors were invited to write their own letters to migrants detained at the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego, CA, in partnership with the organization Detainee Allies.
The project archive – including a custom vinyl record featuring a selection of the audio broadcast along with liner notes – was first adapted and presented as part of the exhibition "Leaves for Burning" curated by Juli Carson and Heather M. O'Brien at the University Art Galleries, UCI in 2022.