Electric Neon Clock is a multidisciplinary performance and installation based on a 119-page WWII Canadian government custodial file that details the forced displacement, dispossession, and surveillance of my Japanese Canadian family.

While my past work has explored the lives of strangers through found objects and media, this project pivots inward—to archival materials that belonged to my own family, offering a deeply personal entry point into a collective history.
Presented as a fictional auction, Electric Neon Clock transforms dry bureaucratic records into a living, participatory experience. The gallery becomes an imagined auction house, where audience members, seated as remote bidders, listen through telephones receivers to story fragments, bidding instructions, and surprising asides. A voiceover and original musical score layer in historical context and emotional tone, while projections, performance, and archival materials (including family photos and 16mm film footage) bring each “lot” to life.

Each item in the Kobayashi family inventory, once seized by the government, is used as a narrative anchor to explore migration, memory, and the complexities of value. What is the worth of a children’s harmonica or a fishing boat, when seen through the lens of forced uprooting? Who gets to assign meaning to personal history?

This immersive and sometimes humorous work invites audiences to grapple with the bureaucratic coldness of state surveillance and the warm, fragile details of lived experience. It's a meditation on how we inherit trauma, how we keep stories alive, and how art can transform loss into connection.

Currently in development, Electric Neon Clock will premiere as a solo exhibition at the Art Gallery of Mississauga located in the GTA in Summer and Fall of 2026.