The piece Teach Me How To Love This World is an ephemeral installation which combines poetry and photographic media. The project features two modified carousel projectors - one showcasing a series of 80 film slides with pronouns and the other 80 film slides with nouns. The carousels automatically advance each slide every 30 seconds, creating a repeating and endless thread of words questioning the seemingly never ending cycle of war and peace such as “Your” “Blood”, “My” “Love”, and “Our” “Peace”. The endlessly repeating words used all across the project act as a desperate prayer of hope for the future and questioning the fundamental idea of violence as being inherent to human nature.

The pieces that are part of the larger series also includes Talking Heads, This Age of Ours, and Riddle of Peace/War. 

Talking Heads is an exploration that converges audio, visual, and conceptual elements, manifesting as an installation featuring painted radios and radio transmitters. At the core of this immersive auditory experience lies a duality of transmission, with two distinct audio tracks broadcast through the radio transmitters, each reverberating through its respective blacked out radio.

The audio composition intricately weaves a tapestry of sirens from diverse global contexts, spanning various nations and pivotal historical moments. Among these are the haunting echoes of the nuclear strike test siren from Hawaii in 2017, the stark emergency siren sounded in Japan during North Korean nuclear weapon testing, and the solemn resonance of the initial siren that signaled the onset of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. These sirens, once utilized as signals of warning or alarm, are now transformed into a layered, drone-like musical composition.

Overlaying this multifaceted auditory landscape is my own voice asking the questions, "Who is going to be the next Sacrifice for Peace" and "Who is going to be the next Sacrifice for War?" These probing inquiries punctuate the sonic landscape, inviting contemplation on the cyclical nature of conflict, sacrifice, and the elusive quest for peace. 

This Age of Ours is a mixed-media painting that examines the juxtaposition between peace, sacrifice, and the enduring echoes of historical trauma. At its heart lies a canvas adorned with a vibrant red peace sign, emblazoned with poignant inquiries in black spray-painted script: "Whose sacrifice?" and "Whose Peace?"

Central to this evocative composition is a black-and-white photograph that protrudes from the canvas, occupying the center stage of the artwork. The inverted image captures an impactful moment—a goat exposed to the devastating radiation of an A-bomb blast on Bikini Atoll Island. In a poignant visual juxtaposition, the goat receives a blood transfusion administered by three masked doctors at the Bethesda Naval Medical Research Institute, MD, in the aftermath of the blast. This historical photograph, captured by George Skadding in 1946, evokes a haunting testament to the repercussions of nuclear warfare and the interplay between sacrifice, survival, and scientific intervention.

Riddle of Peace/War is a site-specific installation featuring a repeating poem written by placing wood ash on a pedestal laid on the gallery floor. This ephemeral poetry responds to the space and audience throughout the room by air flow, footsteps and other vibrations as it is slowly changed and eventually erased. 

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Teach Me How To Love This World 
2022
Looped projection (slide projector, 160 slide films, projector controller)
30 min projection loop

Talking Heads
2022
Analog radio, 2 channel audio, media player, radio transmitter, acrylic paint
9 min loop
24 x 8 x 2.5 in. each

This Age of Ours
2022
Unprimed canvas, spray paint, print on aluminum Dibond
36 x 48 x 3 in. 

Riddle of Peace/War
2022 - ongoing
Loose ash on pedestal
Installation: Various depending on the available pedestal  

Burning Away offers a transformative narrative, meticulously crafted through the intricate chemigram process. The chemigram process fuses painting and photography, stretching the boundaries of conventional artistry. In this series, Ito applies substances like honey and oils onto sun-fused silver gelatin paper, giving birth to printed surfaces that are as tactile as they are visual. 

Within these images lies a profound duality of both the macro and micro aspects of the nuclear threat. The prints conjure microscopic views of cells, symbolic of the unseen yet potent menace of radiation. They prompt contemplation of the incomprehensible scale of total nuclear war, evoking the devastating microscale and macrocosmic reach of radiation. 

Central to Burning Away is the intricate relationship between landscapes and the human body, both haunted by the specter of radiation. At the moment the bomb exploded in the sky over Hiroshima, a giant fireball reached 7,700 degrees Fahrenheit, the surface temperature of the sun. The heat wave vaporized the people near ground zero and left devastating burns on those left alive. Ito found many stories of survivors treating the burns with honey, cooking oil, and motor oil due to the scarcity of even the most basic medicine. Printed at human scale, Burning Away carries the weight of nuclear devastation, on both the body and the land. 

This ongoing project invites us to witness the enduring human spirit amid the shadows of nuclear catastrophe. 

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Burning Away
2021-ongoing
Unique silver gelatin chemigram (sunlight, honey, various oil, tree sap), wooden frame
100 x 42 x 1.5in. (8 of 24 x 20in. prints)

Total Sense of Absorption is a multimedia piece that resulted from a live performance on February 28th, 2023.

The performance involved me wearing a hazmat suit while holding an uranium glass bowl - a style of glass made with uranium popular during the 1950s - filled with photo developer and walking on B&W darkroom paper. During this walk, I took 452 steps and stopped every so often to re-dip my bare feet into the developer. The resulting image from these steps is a 100ft long black and white American flag. 

The number of steps correlates directly to the number of successfully cleaned up Superfund Sites - sites of contamination due to varying causes across the United States. Currently, there are 1,329 sites that still need to be cleaned. Inside of the footsteps I have scratched the date and time of the clean up of these sites as well as the ones responsible for the contamination. 

This large scale photogram highlights and celebrates the expurgation of the 452 sites and recognizes the monumental task of healing the land’s trauma. Conversely, it also draws attention to the large amount of hazardous sites that still exist - the blank areas of the flag normally where the white stripes would go gives plenty of space for more footsteps to be added serving as both a record and call to action. 

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Total Sense of Absorption 
2023
Performance using silver gelatin black and white photography paper, photo developer, disposal hazmat suit, uranium glass bowl, artist's body
42 in. x 99 ft.
 

Where the Mountains Glow is a multimedia piece consisting of four uranium glass objects (a Peacemaker Revolver, a Native American head in traditional headwear, an arrow head, and a butterfly). I have placed these objects, relics of the Industrial Revolution, Modernization and Colonization, onto four images taken from various photographic archives such as Times Magazine and the Associated Press. 

A recent direction in my artistic practice is to bridge the gap in who is seen as nuclear victims. My heritage, as a third generation hibakusha (atomic bomb victim), is seen as the epitome of nuclear victimhood. However, Americans and Native Americans were often some of the first and continue to be victimized by the nuclear programs. 

Accompanying the objects is a 25’ long roll of paper that lists the abandoned uranium mines on Navajo lands. This collection of objects is a new presentation of a series of data and archives in a way that is monumental. The imagery, objects, and data are all publicly available but are not often addressed due to a variety of factors. Using my own identity, research, and experience Where the Mountains Glow shines a UV black light onto the invisible, forgotten, and ongoing trauma that still inhabits the land and the people. 

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Where the Mountains Glow 
2023
Uranium glass, inverted historical archive printed on metal, black light, light stand, paper scroll
Installation: Various (four 8 x 10 in. metal prints with uranium glass)
Accompanied with a 30 x 310 in. scroll listing every known uranium mine on Navajo nation
 

Each Tolling Sun is a multimedia installation immersed in the legacy of nuclear tragedy and symbolism, delving into the profound impact of nuclear warfare through various artistic elements. At its core is a circular metal sheet, deliberately distorted by 108 strikes from a sledgehammer—a poignant representation echoing the symbolism found in Japanese Buddhism, where 108 signifies purification and renewal.

Surrounding this centerpiece, 108 vivid photogram prints unfold a visual journey, capturing the transformative hues of orange, red, and yellow circles against stark black or red backgrounds. These circles, mirroring the altered metal, symbolize a profound odyssey through 108 iterations, intertwining personal history with broader narratives.

This body of work draws inspiration from my grandfather's experience as a Hiroshima bombing survivor, with the sun serving as a potent symbol embodying both life and destruction. The deliberate strikes upon the metal plate manifest my palpable frustration with contemporary nuclear tensions, symbolizing a fervent call for global harmony and disarmament. The series of circles exhibited in the gallery space distill this frustration into representations of 108 suns, serving as visual echoes of my vision and mission.

The deliberate exposure of photographic paper to sunlight captures the gradual decay and transformation of the metal, aligning with the spiritual significance of the number 108. 

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Each Tolling Sun 
2023
Unique c-print photogram (hammered steel disk, sunlight artist's breath), sledge hammer, hammered steel disk, video projection with 2-channel audio.
Installation: Various ( 108 of 20 x 21 in. prints, a 8 x 35 x 3.5 in. sledge hammer, a 18 in.  diameter steel disk, and a 1 hr 36 min 39 sec video and audio