Fred Schmidt-Arenales

B-29, you are my sunshine
2019
Two Channel Video Installation, Sound
24:29

B-29, you are my sunshine is a multimedia installation that includes a two channel video, three photographs, and two sculptural elements. The video features two interviews, one with my grandfather Alfonso Arenales, who participated in the occupation of Japan after WW2, and one with Keisuke Gonda, a Japanese Communist Party member and labor union activist in the post war years. The photographs are scanned and printed negatives I found in Alfonso's personal collection, preserved in their broken state. The project explores the extent to which the experience of a place and time can differ according to the power afforded by position or identity.