Rika Ohara
http://www.bluefat.com/intro.html
Rika Ohara has been combining time-based visual media and live, dance-theater-informed performances in her interdisciplinary works since the early ’80s. Her rule-breaking, technology-stretching work has been described “low-budget high-tech.”
Born and raised in Japan, her early influences include Osamu Tezuka, the creator of Astro Boy and Kimba. Arriving in the U.S. in 1980, she studied with Czech surrealist photographer Vilem Kriz in Oakland and received MFA from California Institute of the Arts.
Nuclear destruction and its socio-psychological significance, cultural and sexual conflicts in international politics have been the frequent subjects of her work, including Neither Garlic nor Beans (1985/88), Tokyo Rose (1995) and the Shelter series (1988-).
Based on a dream she had of awaiting nuclear destruction in a glass shelter, Shelter developed in a series of site-specific installation/performances (on the street, on the beach and on the roof). It was exhibited as a digital-video installation at New Territories Festival in Glasgow (2002) and at Monaco Dance Forum (2000).
Ohara is a recipient of California Arts Council Artists Fellowship in 2001-02 and has contributed cultural essays, film and book reviews to the L.A. Weekly.
Ohara’s mother and grandmother lost their homes three times to air raids during WWII. She came to the U.S. as a painter and studied photography with Czech surrealist Vilem Kriz. She began making performance art works when the trade war with Japan was prominent in the American consciousness during the 1980s, finding in the form a way to combine her visual arts and
dance training.
When the Paris American Center closed its theater in February 1996 (three months before the scheduled performance of Tokyo Rose), followed by personnel changes at ICA, the Walker Art Center and The Kitchen — who had all expressed interest in presenting the piece — Ohara re-shot 2,000 slides for Shelter and put its performance element on digital video, shooting it entirely in her 10’ x 13’ living room. The performance-in-installation was converted into a media installation and was shown in Paris, Monaco, Glasgow, Berlin and Tokyo.
Next Ohara embarked on the production of her first feature-length digital video piece, The Heart of No Place, featuring many L.A. performance-art and dance luminaries. Ohara received a California Community Foundation Fellowship in Multimedia in 2004.
Rika Ohara participates in
2007/2008
NewMediaFest2007 – DIGITAL MEDIA Valencia 2008
Cinematheque – streaming media project environments
Slowtime2007? – Quicktime as an artistic medium
curated by Wilfried Agricola de Cologne
2005
Memorial for the Victims of Terror
curated by Agricola de Cologne
2003
curated by Wilfried Agricola de Cologne