While I was curating LOVE MOVEMENT, I became friends with an optimistic 12-year-old art curator named Super Cooper. Fast forward a year, and we were mounting an art show to commemorate the first anniversary of the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which had struck Japan just after LOVE MOVEMENT’s Japanese artists had returned home. The magnitude 9.0 earthquake claimed the lives of more than 15,000 people, triggered nuclear accidents and moved earth on its axis. Cooper and I thought a lot about how people (particularly young people) processed this information. And so we invited over 50 emerging artists (ages 2-16) to collaborate with established artists (family and friends) on artwork about nature’s powerful forces.

Project Details

Gallery Kokoro
Year 2011
Role Curator

San Francisco, a city that’s no stranger to “earth movement,” was our ideal location for the show. EARTH MOVEMENT’s young artists came from all over the USA, plus Japan, France, Russia, Germany, Scotland and Australia. Their collaborators included familiar names from contemporary art, pop surrealism and toy design who shared a common bond of love for Japanese art and culture. EARTH MOVEMENT featured original drawings, paintings, sculpture, photography, prints and more. All work was available for purchase with 20-75% of each sale donated to Arts for Hope in Japan. The EARTH MOVEMENT tumblr site contains the original press release, artist list, sponsors, photos and more.