Shokan: 2016-2018

Installation view at 2019. Pages from notepad, photocopy of hand-written journal and essay in Japanese, vinyl lettering

Shokan means "a letter" or "correspondence" in Japanese. Takahashi collected 40 English words from her own vocabulary notes for her understanding of immigration articles in NY Times. Takahashi combined these selections with entries from her journal as a teenager and personally influential essays to create short haiku poems on a wall. Shokan is her way of visual communication with society in the U.S. by illustrating the familiar words for native speakers while sharing the experience a non-native speaker has with them.