Microscope is very pleased to present a new edition of our emerging artist series YES featuring short works by Isabel Sakura and by Rebecca Shapass, two artists working with celluloid film, video, performance and installation among other mediums. Shared themes of the two young, New York-based artists include femininity, feminism, sexuality, identity and the body, which are approached at times satirically or with dark humor. Various analog and digital cinematic processes such as hand-processing of film, video mixing, distortion, multiple exposures, and/or split screen are important to both.
Shapass’ work takes a highly personal approach, incorporating childhood and other family home movies shot on Hi8 video and Super 8mm film; audio recordings; and more recently texts and other materials into her works. Diaristic elements are combined with found footage, live analog mixing, and the use of her own body as a way to "deconstruct notions surrounding femininity and womanhood through the study of individual and collective memory”. Cinematic concerns are also important to the artist, especially with regard to texture, motion, and light.
Sakura’s works involve original music, choreography, and performance in which she appears as Sakura Dijin, which loosely translates from Japanese as President Cherry Blossom. Soft focus and the use of shades of pink, purple and other pastel colors subvert expectations and stereotypes from within them. Sakura says of her work: "By distorting images of my body, recordings of my voice, and the screen, I explore the ways in which media shapes how bodies and identities are produced, and how they are watched. “
Isabel Sakura and Rebecca Shapass will be in person and available for a Q&A following the screening.
_
Isabel Sakura (a.k.a Sakura Dijin) is a Japanese-American multimedia artist based in Brooklyn, working mainly with music videos and installation as forms to explore themes of the femme idol and toxic romance in relation to the digital body and identity. Her work has previously appeared in exhibits, screenings and performances in New York at Brooklyn Children’s Museum, Bronx Art Space, Knockdown Center, and Trans Pecos, among others. She graduated with a BFA and a minor in Culture and Media from Parsons in 2018.
Rebecca Shapass is a filmmaker and multidisciplinary artist based in her native New York City. Her image-making practice revolves around an exploration of femininity through the themes of sexuality, identity, and the body. This interest converges with a study of memory and time through moving image, careful research, and the employment of anachronisms. Rebecca’s works manifest as diaristic and found footage films, video art, analog projections, installations, and multi-media works. Her work has been screened and exhibited internationally at institutions and festivals such as EFA Project Space (New York, NY), Open Signal (Portland, OR), Microscope Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), Artifact Film Festival (Canada), ZEE Jaipur Lit Fest (Dubai), Puffin Cultural Forum (Teaneck, NJ), amongst others. Rebecca is currently a part of Smack Mellon's 2018-19 Artist Studio Program where she is also a NY Community Trust Fellow. Previously, she has been a resident at NURTUREart (Brooklyn, NY) and Signal Culture (Owego, NY). She is a 2017 graduate of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.