Letting the sound happen around you': powerful sonic memorial remembers the dead

"The caves of Okinawa were used almost as bunkers to protect people, Kiyomi Gork explains. But they were also spaces of mass suicide because of Japanese propaganda. Local Uchinanchu who took refuge there were instructed by Japanese soldiers to kill themselves, rather than face what they were told would be a violent fate at the hands of the US army."

"They weren't, and so while his siblings and parents were incarcerated at Tule Lake in northern California, he was on the frontlines in what has been deemed one of the bloodiest conflicts in the Pacific during the second world war. The caves of Okinawa were used almost as bunkers to protect people, Kiyomi Gork explains. But they were also spaces of mass suicide because of Japanese propaganda."

"As one of the few American soldiers who spoke Japanese, Kiyomi Gork's great-uncle worked to ensure their safe passage. The parallel experiences of the Uchinanchu in the caves and Japanese-Americans interned at Tule Lake that have been silenced by decades of repressed trauma and historical whitewashing sit at the heart of Kiyomi Gork's forthcoming exhibition, Gama 1213-B, at Canary Test, an experimental arts space in downtown Los Angeles."

In 1945, during the Battle of Okinawa, Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork's great-uncle served as a US soldier after volunteering, hoping his family might be spared internment. His family were incarcerated at Tule Lake while he fought on some of the Pacific's bloodiest frontlines. Okinawan caves served as bunkers and, due to Japanese propaganda, sites of mass suicide where local Uchinanchu were instructed to kill themselves. As one of few soldiers who spoke Japanese, his great-uncle helped secure safe passage for people in the caves. The parallel silencing of Uchinanchu experiences and Japanese-American internment informs Gork's exhibition Gama 1213-B at Canary Test. Family conversations about detention resurfaced amid recent US immigration detentions, and Gork recounts inherited shame about Japanese identity and problematic Western expectations.

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