TT Takemoto is an American artist and associate professor of

visual studies Visual culture is the aspect of culture expressed in visual images. Many academic fields study this subject, including cultural studies, art history, critical theory, philosophy, media studies, Deaf Studies, and anthropology. The field of visu ...

and dean of Humanities & Sciences at

California College of the Arts California College of the Arts (CCA) is a private art school in San Francisco, California. It was founded in Berkeley, California in 1907 and moved to a historic estate in Oakland, California in 1922. In 1996 it opened a second campus in San ...

in San Francisco. Takemoto's work explores issues of

race Race, RACE or "The Race" may refer to: * Race (biology), an informal taxonomic classification within a species, generally within a sub-species * Race (human categorization), classification of humans into groups based on physical traits, and/or s ...

and queer identity. They have presented work internationally, and received numerous grants for their work, notably from ART Matters, the

James Irvine Foundation The James Irvine Foundation is a philanthropic nonprofit organization established to benefit the people of California. The foundation's grantmaking focuses on a California where all low-income workers have the power to advance economically. The fou ...

and the

San Francisco Arts Commission The San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC) is the City agency that champions the arts as essential to daily life by investing in a vibrant arts community, enlivening the urban environment and shaping innovative cultural policy in San Francisco, Cali ...

. Their film
Looking for Jiro
' received Best Experimental Film Jury Award at the Austin LGBT International Film Festival, and opened MIX 24: New York’s Queer Experimental Film Festival. Takemoto also writes articles for ''

Afterimage AfterImage is a Filipino rock band formed in 1986, best known for their songs "Habang May Buhay", "Next in Line", and "Mangarap Ka". They disbanded in 1997 and became active again in 2008 after they reunited and released their fourth studio album ...

, Art Journal, GLQ,

Performance Research ''Performance Research'' is a specialist performance arts journal published bi-monthly (from 2012). It is an independent, peer-reviewed journal published by Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd for ARC, a division of the Centre for Performan ...

Radical Teacher ''Radical Teacher'' is a socialist, feminist, and anti-racist peer-reviewed academic journal dedicated to the theory and practice of education. The journal examines the root causes of inequality and promotes progressive social change in the field ...

, Theatre Survey, Women and Performance,'' and the anthology ''Thinking Through the Skin''. Takemoto is a board member of th
Queer Cultural Center
and co-founder o

Education

BA,

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

; MFA,

Rutgers State University of New Jersey Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...

; MA, PhD,

University of Rochester The University of Rochester (U of R, UR, or U of Rochester) is a private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees. The University of Roc ...

Work

Their work examines issues of

illness A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, and that is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that ar ...

, race, queer identity,

memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered, ...

, and

grief Grief is the response to loss, particularly to the loss of someone or some living thing that has died, to which a bond or affection was formed. Although conventionally focused on the emotional response to loss, grief also has physical, cogni ...

. Early work included work with Angela Ellsworth, under the collective name Her/She Senses Takemoto's film "Looking for Jiro Onuma" explores same-sex intimacy and queer sexuality for Japanese Americans incarcerated by the US government during World War II. The film, in which Takemoto performs as Jiro, grew out of an archives project curated by E. G. Crichton, artist-in-residence at the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transsexual Historical Society of San Francisco. This project matched contemporary artists with historical persons whose papers were found in the archive. Takemoto was matched with Jiro Onuma, a gay bachelor and

dandy A dandy is a man who places particular importance upon physical appearance, refined language, and leisurely hobbies, pursued with the appearance of nonchalance. A dandy could be a self-made man who strove to imitate an aristocratic lifestyle desp ...

in San Francisco until he was incarcerated in the Japanese American Internment Camp at Topaz, Utah, in 1942. The sculptural piece which resulted from their investigation of his archival box was “Gay Bachelor’s Japanese American Internment Survival Kit.” This "survival kit" created objects for Jiro,

body building Bodybuilding is the use of progressive resistance exercise to control and develop one's muscles (muscle building) by muscle hypertrophy for aesthetic purposes. It is distinct from similar activities such as powerlifting because it focuses o ...

literature and equipment.

References

External links

TT Takemoto's website

TT Takemoto's faculty site at California College of the Arts
{{DEFAULTSORT:Takemoto, TT 21st-century American women artists Film directors from California Living people California College of the Arts faculty Artists from the San Francisco Bay Area American women artists Year of birth missing (living people) American artists of Japanese descent University of California, Berkeley alumni University of Rochester alumni American women academics American academics of Japanese descent