Catherine Cross Uehara
artist event
STRAWBERRY FIELDS FOREVER
Friday, September 10 in the morning
Bellevue Downtown Park
10201 NE 4th Street, Bellevue, WA
Performance staging, roving performance in Downtown Park. The artist will explore embodied ancestry and a journey of self-discovery. Filmed interview as a part of the performance.
Born 1971 in Berkeley, California, Catherine, who self-identifies as an Indigenous/Uchinanchu/Hapa artist, was on a union picket line before she could walk. Her dad, George Kunio Uehara grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii of immigrant Okinawan/Uchinanchu parents. Her maternal grandmother, Dorothea Cross Leighton, who was 1/4 Native American, was a pioneering social psychiatrist and the first president of the Society for Medical Anthropology. She was baptized in the woods of Nova Scotia and even though her best friends have been horses and dogs, she’s warming up to humans. Catherine received her BA in Studio Art from UC Davis in 1993–1995, and her MFA in painting from Hunter College (CUNY) in 2000. While at Hunter (where you could attend part-time which was amazing) she also worked at the now legendary New York Central Art Supply where she met many interesting and important artists and artist assistants, and got her first art handling job at the Guggenheim Museum on 5th Avenue. She has been making art quietly and mostly in secret in Seattle since 2005, and has worked as an art handler/packer/shipper here in the Greater Pacific Northwest since 2006. This is her third trade show booth-styled art installation. The previous two projects were in collaboration with Mike Slattery and others of Chicagoland’s AAA Design.
STRAWBERRY FIELDS FOREVER!
STRAWBERRY FIELDS FOREVER! is an amorphous performative installation involving educational/historical texts and photographs which discuss the historical timeline/facts about the site. There will be a large banner with the title across it. The public is invited to educate themselves and discuss the history of Bellevue with the artist and each other. There may be a performance with collaborators as approved by the curator. There might be a marching band and a parade / procession / performance (depending on how it develops). Yoko Ono has been asked for her blessing, and permission to use the song.