Artwork

Castella

A two-person exhibition on cultural icons and adopted cultures, with Joseph Imhauser.

Castella exhibition announcement card: Joseph Imhauser & Michiko Yao, November 15–19 2004, CalArts Stevenson Blanche Devereaux Gallery, with the Japanese katakana title カステラ
Castella, 2004. Two-person exhibition with Joseph Imhauser.

About this work

Castella is a two-person exhibition with Joseph Imhauser. The title comes from a version of sponge cake that became popular in Japan after the sixteenth-century Portuguese exploration of coastal Asia.

The exhibition exposes cultural icons and illustrates how those icons have been adopted by dominating cultures.

A slice of castella sponge cake on a red plate under a glass cloche, with a printed label explaining the history of the cake
Castella and its label — the cake as an imported icon.
Installation view of Castella: a small framed work on a white wall, a tatami platform piece against a green wall, and a low tray of rice husks on the floor
Installation view, Stevenson Blanche Devereaux Gallery, CalArts.
Three black-and-white archival photographs of Japanese troops in Manchuria in the early 1930s, hung in a row
Photographs of Japanese troops in Manchuria, early 1930s.