A.S.M. Kobayashi: Electric Neon Clock

Electric Neon Clock is a hybrid, immersive work by A.S.M. Kobayashi that mixes documentary, performance, and installation. Born and raised in Mississauga, and based in Toronto and New York City, Kobayashi is known for her performative projects that take deep dives into found archival material. For this exhibition, the artist turns to her own family archives, which are part of Canada’s history of forcibly incarcerating and dispossessing thousands of Canadians of Japanese heritage.  

This project began when Kobayashi first encountered the Canadian government’s WWII custodial file on her great-grandfather and subsequently discovered case files belonging to other relatives, their friends, and a wider community of displaced people of Japanese descent. These historical documents detail inventories of their homes and businesses, and include government correspondence, internal memos, and court transcripts. All adults named in the original documents have passed away, leaving their children, now seniors, as bearers of the only first-person accounts of this period. These living relatives were infants and young children at the time, making the custodial file the most enduring testimony of the artist’s family during those years. 

Electric Neon Clock asks: How can the artist liberate forensic practices and state records to undermine their original intention and use them to reconstruct the community and families they were designed to dismantle? Relying on the custodial file as a guide, Kobayashi adapts this record into an installation and live performance detailing her family’s experience. Using video, sound, archival documents, a substantial photo archive, and the innovative format of a live auction, Kobayashi welcomes audiences to delve into her family’s file and join her in assessing the inventory’s value and humanizing its contents.

Curated by AGM Senior Curator Shannon Anderson

A.S.M. Kobayashi is an interdisciplinary artist who grew up in Mississauga and is currently based in New York City and Toronto. Her hybrid, interactive work mixes documentary and fiction through video, performance, installation, and illustration. Her video work and performances have been exhibited internationally at museums and film festivals including The Lincoln Center, GTA24, The Power Plant, Gallery TPW, Nuit Blanche, BFI London Film Festival, Jakarta International Film Festival and Damascus Video Art Festival. Her critically acclaimed performance, Say Something Bunny!, based on found audio recordings, was heralded as “The best new theater experience in town” by Vogue. It was a NYTimes critics’ pick, and was listed in Time Out’s 2017 top ten productions and BOMB’s Best of Performance in 2018. Kobayashi is a 2024 Creative Capital Awardee, a 2006 recipient of the Trinity Square Video Artistic Vision Award and a 2007 Marty Award winner. She has received grants from the Canada Council, Toronto Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council and New York State Council on the Arts. She was a multi-time fellow at both Yaddo and MacDowell, was the founding art director of the documentary journal World Records from 2018-2021, and produces Special Projects at UnionDocs, Center for Documentary Art.