Baco Ohama : on Roy Ito

knowing, not knowing

1.
I arrive at the archives wondering
but not knowing
what I would discover
or create in response to Roy’s diary
only knowing
I wanted to be open to the experience
of being
there
with the others
with his work, his words
his diary
there is an immediate sense
of intimacy
as I hold the diary in my gloved hands
which grows as I lift the front cover
and read the salutation
“Just,”
I begin to read passages
slowly
allowing them to take their time
and for me to take my time
with them
at this initial stage however
it’s not just the words themselves
that I take in
but the diary’s physical presence
its weight (or lightness)
its smell up close
and the sound of its pages
passing my thumb
as I listen to thoughts skimming
and flitting about the room
its these sensations
I want to remember
and will take home with me
along with the resonance
of that word “Just,”

2.
with photocopied pages
I return home
my experience with Roy’s work
now changing
there is no longer the actual object
to respond to
except through mind and body
memory
now it’s the text itself
his words and his handwriting
that has my attention
I read and reread
the whole diary
then chunks
silently and out loud
sometimes making notes on yellow stickies
on other days underlining passages
or highlighting sections
I write in my own journal over the months
as well
my words at times
directly relate to his
there is a back and forth movement
as if in conversation
and there are many unanswered questions
the implication, the gesture
knowing, not knowing
eventually I move from thinking in my notebook
to thinking directly in Final Cut Pro
(the video editing software I used)

3.
I start to write Roy letters
reflecting on his unfinished letters
that begin “Dear Eiko”
were they ever finished
and sent?
or were they a way perhaps
to keep him writing in his diary?
a focal point
an imagined audience
a real receiver
of his stories, lists, notations, experiences
even if unsent?
inked thoughts
to be shared in some future work perhaps
a way to imply, suggest, remember
the presence of what isn’t quite
written
the implication, the gesture
knowing, not knowing

4.
this project brings me
back
to thinking about privacy
and respect
what gets offered, shared, made public
and what occupies the space
of imagination, conjecture
and what I call “wonderingwandering”?
knowing and not knowing
can reside together
as the tangible and imagined
as fact and fiction
as presumed and maybe
it’s in these spaces that I listen
for the resonance of what might be
felt
and heard
the implication, the gesture
knowing, not knowing

Being invited to be a part of this collaborative project has been an honour. I have deep respect for Cindy Mochizuki, Julie Tamiko Manning, and Kyo Maclear and for their creative work and approaches to practice. I hope that we’ll get a chance to work together again, sometime in the future.

Since I couldn’t be there for the launch of the website, I wasn’t able to thank Roy Ito’s family in person, so I would like to do that here. Thank you so much for sharing Roy’s work and personal papers with the community by donating them to the Museum and Archives, and for your generosity and trust in allowing us to create response pieces to his diary. The whole process was very moving for me, and reverberates in ways that I probably could never fully articulate.

Just,
Baco
Baco Ohama is an artist, writer and educator whose integrated practice brings her over and over again to the water’s edge; to thinking about the relationships between history, language and location. “Whether working on installations, sound and video works, postcard projects, performances or collaborations, I seem to find myself thinking a lot about the actions of gathering and dispersal and portable possibilities.”
She is a Canadian currently living in Washington DC and on faculty at Goddard College in Vermont.