Claudia Kogachi talks to her obaachan (grandmother) on Skype every day, but in recent months has been unable to visit her at home in Oahu, Hawaiʻi, due to Covid-related border restrictions. In her large-scale rug work for Te Tuhi, Kogachi remembers the most recent visit with her mother, last summer, and some of the routine tasks that make up the days at her obaachan’s house—cleaning the freezer out, rolling musubi (spam sushi), barbecuing galbi / 갈 갈 (Korean short ribs) for meals—activities running in parallel to ongoing conversations between the women of three generations. The work registers a relationship between social exchange, food, attentiveness, and physical labour. While both Kogachi and her obaachan are frequently preoccupied with practical tasks, in this work such concentration and work might also be understood as forms of familial contact, ways of staying in touch across distance.
Claudia Kogachi was born in Japan (Awaji-Shima) and graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2018. She was recently part of Artspace Aotearoa’s The New Artists Show. Other recent exhibitions include Everyone Has A Horse Phase (2020), Sanderson Contemporary, Tāmaki Makaurau and Uncle Gagi (2020), play_station space, Pōneke Wellington.
Claudia Kogachi talks to her obaachan (grandmother) on Skype every day, but in recent months has been unable to visit her at home in Oahu, Hawaiʻi, due to Covid-related border restrictions. In her large-scale rug work for Te Tuhi, Kogachi remembers the most recent visit with her mother, last summer, and some of the routine tasks that make up the days at her obaachan’s house—cleaning the freezer out, rolling musubi (spam sushi), barbecuing galbi / 갈 갈 (Korean short ribs) for meals—activities running in parallel to ongoing conversations between the women of three generations. The work registers a relationship between social exchange, food, attentiveness, and physical labour. While both Kogachi and her obaachan are frequently preoccupied with practical tasks, in this work such concentration and work might also be understood as forms of familial contact, ways of staying in touch across distance.
Claudia Kogachi was born in Japan (Awaji-Shima) and graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2018. She was recently part of Artspace Aotearoa’s The New Artists Show. Other recent exhibitions include Everyone Has A Horse Phase (2020), Sanderson Contemporary, Tāmaki Makaurau and Uncle Gagi (2020), play_station space, Pōneke Wellington.
