By Kai Curry
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
Art is an effective way to send a message. Art can be used to inspire others about a cause. Tacoma artist Teruko Nimura will use an art installation to send a message and inspire at the 17th Annual South Sound Sustainability Expo on April 26. Titled “Upstream Together,” the installation takes its own inspiration from Nimura’s Japanese cultural background, and its message is about encouraging the community to act together to repair and sustain our precious natural environment.
Photo courtesy of Teruko Nimura
The work itself is multilayered in meaning and purpose. It will consist of a take on Japanese koinobori, which are carp-shaped windsocks flown to celebrate Tango no Sekku, or Children’s Day. The windsocks are made of “reusable” shopping bags and were created partly in collaboration with the public, who donated the bags; and with students at Tacoma’s Science and Math Institute (SAMI), who created some of the bags. Nimura intends for the installation to reference our youth and then to think about the future of our youth under the current circumstances. She hopes that those visiting will consider their habits and the scale of our waste.
In the temporary outdoor installation, the koinobori will float above the viewers as they walk underneath them. They will be reminiscent of the movement of wind and water, and of Japanese (or other Asian) spiritual paths and gateways, such as torii. Alongside the koinobori will be papier mâché dragons made by the SAMI students during a class given by Nimura. Each dragon has a theme relating to the environment and sustainability. Some themes represented are animal and animal parts trafficking and saving endangered sea turtles or wolves.
Photo courtesy of Teruko Nimura
Photo courtesy of Teruko Nimura
The installation—and the relationships built with the public—have been part of Nimura’s goals as a City of Tacoma Artist in Residence for 2024 to 2025. In particular, Nimura has worked with the City’s Solid Waste utility to raise awareness about concerns relating to climate change, nature, recycling, sustainability, and other environmental topics. Creating the dragons, as an example, was designed to empower the youth to increase their knowledge, and possibly their activism, through research and art, Nimura told the Asian Weekly. It has been a subject important to Nimura for some time. As a mother with two children of her own, she has previously done work contemplating the global environmental crisis and incorporating her love of nature and animals. While her prior work usually involved textiles, as the artist in residence, she has become passionate about utilizing reclaimed materials. The use of shopping bags for “Upstream Together” is a commentary on the fact that, even with our good intentions, even with supposedly appropriate materials used to make some shopping bags, they end up in the landfills anyway.
The daughter of a Filipina mother and a Japanese father, Nimura grew up in California, and now resides in Tacoma’s University Place. She distinctly remembers visiting the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, Japan when she was a young girl. There is a work there that Nimura credits as instilling in her a lifelong interest in the power of art. That work is the Children’s Peace Monument, which commemorates the death of Sadako Sasaki and all of the children who died due to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, either at that moment or later. Nimura was only 6 years old when she saw it. “I didn’t know that a child could die,” she shared. Not long after that experience, Nimura’s father passed away, making that time period a turning point for her about loss and grief, how to relate to the world, “and the implications of one little girl and how she can become a symbol of peace—and she was just a little girl like me.”
Because of the loss of her father, Nimura’s mother seems to have focused on her children’s Japanese cultural ties as a way to connect them to their dad. Nimura recalls that every year, they would attend the Obon ceremony in California. Nimura got to know her dad through the objects that he left behind. “They can represent much more than what they are,” she said. “Cultural connections, touchstones for people, memory. Objects can speak in a lot of ways, and materials can speak also beyond language.” Nimura’s connection to her Filipino culture has come more recently. Her mother, she explained, grew up with more of a focus on assimilation. They were meant to emphasize their American-ness rather than their Filipino heritage. Nimura’s father and family were incarcerated in the U.S. during World War II, and her sister, Tamiko Nimura, has done written work reflecting on what it means to inherit that legacy and the loss of their dad, Nimura said. “We don’t commiserate directly, but our work is echoing one another in a certain way.”
Nimura has always loved drawing. As a child, she used to draw all over her body, she said with a laugh. Nimura is cheerfully enthusiastic in person, although she can pivot back to the seriousness of the topics of her art in a heartbeat. Her work thus far has been mainly in the form of temporary installations, such as “Upstream Together,” although she hopes to contribute permanent public art pieces in the near future. Nimura’s hope with the Expo’s installation is that people who view the floating koinobori will experience the collective energy needed to tackle the world’s environmental problems—to figure out “how to save ourselves” and swim upstream together.
The 17th Annual South Sound Sustainability Expo takes place on April 26, from 10 a.m.–3 p.m. at the University of Washington Tacoma campus, along the Prairie Line Trail, and is free to the public. The installation of carp kites and dragons will be in the Tollefson Plaza, near the Marriott.
Photo courtesy of Teruko Nimura
For more information, visit SouthSoundSustainabilityExpo.org or call (253) 381-2228.
Kai can be reached at newstips@nwasianweekly.com.