Featured Student Member Gallery
Archive 8 - October-December 2001

Gallery Four Student Profile Kanako Sasaki It is very hard to see your own personality, when you don’t want to be aware. Sometime, your facial expression can't help revealing true feelings and senses no matter how you try to hide them. As I've lived in the United States for four years, I've become more flexible in terms of my cultural identities, gender, and nationality. Being in the different culture always has pressed me to overcome difficulties. Sometimes, I can be very American, making smiling faces. Sometimes, I can be very happy communicating in Japanese. And these multiple exposures show how I've adjusted to survive in the different culture. During my stay, I question how people see other people's emotions and true feelings. Unless they speak up, it is impossible to unveil the personality. The most important thing about this project has been the process of bringing it together, while observing my own personality in the transcendent environment. At the same time, this distance even forces me to portray many aspects of Japanese womanhood, by the traditional literacy and inspired by my own memories and my recent insights when I was back home. Living in two cultures, I can reflect on Japanese history and art in a way that I never could before. This work has made me more aware of my nationality and has enhanced confidence in my own culture and strength in maintaining my ethnic identity in America. And yet, in a sense, I seem to be redefining tradition rather than simply passing it on. Kanako Sasaki

Gallery Four first photo

Gallery Four second photo