Autumn Strawberry, 2021
multi-media installation; watercolour on paper and digital animation
60 minutes 

Cindy Mochizuki created this animated multi-media installation as part of a 2019 TechLab residency at the Surrey Art Gallery, Surrey, BC. During the residency Mochizuki conducted interviews and conversations with nisei-born (second generation) Japanese Canadian elders who were children during the time their parents and grandparents had owned and worked on strawberry farms across the Fraser Valley area. These sites included Strawberry Hill in Surrey, Haney (Maple Ridge), as well as Mission and Langley. Combining the memory work of archival research and these collected stories of life on the berry farms, Autumn Strawberry weaves together a series of short stories imagined through hand painted digital animation.

The successes of Japanese settler farmers were perceived as a “threat” to the economy by some, and as a result racial animosity and discrimination was directed at the farmers and their wider community. The stories gleaned from these conversations point to the resilience of these berry farmers and family life in the home headed by mothers of the household. The title Autumn Strawberry is taken from the name of the strawberry crop that would fruit in cold winters through a hothouse technique mastered by issei (first generation) pioneer Bunjiro Sakon.

Set in both the past and the future in a place once called both Strawberry Hill or Chicken Mura, the multi-media installation combines the re-imagining of Japanese settler families and their livelihood making homes and setting up a working life on the berry farms on the West Coast of BC in the pre-war era prior to Japanese Canadian internment. The animation housed inside the theatrical setting casts light and shadow onto sculptural tree stumps and the abandoned architecture of once lived-in farm homes. The world created through this installation casts ghostly presences and shadows that re-present the hope and spirit of a “dream of riches” which originally brought them to Canada. 

The presence of the taiko drumming trees also brings to light the harsh reality of the Japanese settler’s participation in the deforestation processes called “tree-stumping” to clear the land so that they could plant berry fields. The multi-channel animation moves from everyday life on the farms to a creaturely, future world of trees and strange insects. The persistent sound of an old radio can be heard playing, predicting, and broadcasting the dangers and fears on the Japanese Canadian body, as hardworking mothers strive to keep multi-generational families alive by preparing food for the coming winter months.

Descendants of the project participants (grandchildren, sons, and daughters of the nisei elders) contributed to the installation and worked with Mochizuki and her collaborator Lisa Mariko Gelley, who choreographed gestures and movements from the animations pertaining to stories connected to the participant’s family lineage. The participants witnessed and watched segments of familial stories, but also repeated and looped gestures unraveling threads connected to their own histories. These dance gestures were performed in the installation and documented as a dance film, which is shown on a monitor in this exhibition. Gelley characterized her involvement with this project as a deeply moving and impactful experience. In the coinciding Autumn Strawberry publication, she shares, “By having audiences witness Japanese Canadian seniors and younger family members embodying movements of their childhoods or movements of their ancestors while they were on these farms, and reclaiming those gestures into their bodies, untold or forgotten stories would come back to life and become real and important again for both performers and witnesses.”

Crew/Collaborator Credits
Animation Digital Compositing & Studio Assistance: Cherry Wen Wen Lu
Editor: Candelario Andrade
Sound Design and Composition: Nancy Tam
Carpentry: Minoru Yamamoto
New Media Playback System Designer/Projection Advisor: Sammy Chien
Taiko: E. Kage
Shakuhachi: Takeo Yamashiro
Accordion Mishelle Cuttler
Foley: Cindy Kao
Violin: Molly MacKinnon
Lighting Design: James Proudfoot

Textile/Costume Design: Leah Weinstein
Website (www.autumnstrawberry.com): Birkwerk Design

Autumn Strawberry was created with the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the British Columbia Arts Council.