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There’s a work of art hanging in the Littman + White Galleries at Portland State University that is so powerful it has changed the life of its creator.
HAHAHA; Language Barrier is an imposing, floor-to-ceiling fabric wall of letters and shapes. Made with sheer fabric, it consists of a series of H’s and A’s sewn together and also shapes that, upon closer inspection, turn out to be vaginas.
It’s the showstopper of the Littman + White solo exhibition of Japanese artist Mai Ide, who grew up in Tokyo but has lived in Portland for 15 years (minus a three-year stint in New York). HAHAHA; Language Barrier is the objectification of what it feels like to be living life and then suddenly hit by a wall of laughter from people who can’t understand what you’re saying because English is your second language and thinks your accent is funny.
“That kind of microaggression happens a lot in Portland,” Ide says. “So many people say, ‘I feel the same way—no one can understand my language.’”
Since Ide first hung HAHAHA; Language Barrier at the Pacific Northwest College of Art in January, she has fielded several job offers, attended a residency in Canada over the summer and, as announced last week, will be one of five artists to participate in the GLEAN residency. About 100 artists applied for this year’s program, in which they glean materials from the Metro Central Transfer Station to create new works of art.
HAHAHA; Language Barrier is part of Ide’s show be nice + kind to yourself on the second floor of Smith Memorial Student Union at PSU, on view through Jan. 10. Ide is a master of fine arts candidate at PNCA and also has a bachelor’s degree in art practice from PSU. She spent a decade working as a materials designer in Japan, thus her command of fabrics and sewing in many of the pieces in be nice + kind to yourself, such as her series of deconstructed corsets. A multimedia artist, Ide also features video, drawings and sculptures at her show.
About those vaginas…not only does the piece address the immigrant experience, it also serves as a feminist critique. The 300 letters and shapes in the artwork are made from 50 obi—the sash worn over the middle of a kimono—that Ide had shipped here from Japan, with the help of a grant from the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art. The point is to weave in the perspectives of 50 other Asian women who might also face the kind of discrimination and gendered expectations that HAHAHA; Language Barrier is about.
“I’m challenging the expectation that once you’ve committed to being a mother, you shouldn’t be sexy, you shouldn’t be great, you should focus on the domestic,” Ide says. “I don’t like it.”
GO: be nice + kind to yourself at Littman + White Galleries, Smith Memorial Student Union, Suite 250, at Portland State University, 1825 SW Broadway, instagram.com/littmanandwhite. Noon–5 pm Monday–Friday, through Jan. 10. Free.