Alan Nakagawa’s “Peace Resonance: Hiroshima/Wendover”

A first-generation Japanese American, Alan Nakagawa presents his work “Peace Resonance: Hiroshima/Wendover.” Having previously presented this work at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum of Art, Orange County Museum of Art, and the Japanese American National Museum, this free and open-to-the public experience invites the listener to sonically inhabit several places at once, simultaneously presenting the recorded “silent” room tone of both Hiroshima’s Atomic Bomb Dome and the Wendover Airfield Hangar that housed the B-29 bomber that dropped the devastating atomic bomb on that city. This piece is a unique opportunity to imaginatively be with the past, dream a future, and consider one’s place in it.

Alan Nakagawa is an interdisciplinary artist with archiving tendencies, primarily working with sound, often incorporating various media and working with communities and their histories. He has created a series of Invisible Architecture experiences that are mash-ups of the recorded acoustics of historical sites, giving new context to historic places through a contemporary lens of sound. Nakagawa is currently the artist in residence at Kaya Press at the University of Southern California, a small literary publisher focusing on the literature of the Asian Pacific diaspora that is celebrating its 30th anniversary. He is also the artist in residence at the Gerth Archives, California State University, Dominguez Hills, assigned to the National Coalition for Redress/Reparations collections, which consists of materials pertaining to the campaign that led to the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. His first book, A.I.R.Head: Anatomy of an Artist in Residence was published in January 2023 by Writ Large Press. It maps his artistic trajectory that led to his nine artist residencies in six years.

Alan Nakagawa presents a free lecture related to his research and sound art on Thursday, October 10, at 2:15 p.m. at Case Western Reserve University. Details can be found on the university’s website.

More information about Alan Nakagawa can be found on his website.

The views expressed by performers during this event are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Cleveland Museum of Art.