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Iowa City artist's 'Woman: hood' virtual
exhibit has creatives interpret interviews
as art pieces
Published 8:07 p.m. CT May 28, 2021 Updated 2:59 p.m. CT May 30, 2021
From practicing Zumba to examining her own cultural background, Satomi Kawai
is interrogating notions of womanhood.
“My piece is ... based on my research of one of the Japanese old customs of blackening teeth,"
Kawai, an Iowa City artist who graduated from the University of Iowa with a Master of Fine
Arts degree in 2006. “I was curious about how my behavior and how (I’ve been socialized) as
a Japanese woman comes from old customs.”
Her wearable art piece "Always on the Quiet Side" is not only inspired by the practice teeth
blackening but is also commentary on "the stereotype of Japanese women" as "modest and
obedient," Kawai explained.
Practicing Zumba further prompted her to examine and question physical characteristics and
body types culturally associated with womanhood in her art. In exploring the theme, Kawai
began to become interested in how people from different cultures conceptualize their own
womanhood.
In 2018, she began to interview others, a process that has culminated in a new multimedia
project that finally comes to fruition this week.
More:'We’ve been able to hold on': After a year of COVID-19, how have Iowa City businesses
changed and evolved?
"Woman: hood" is Kawai's newest virtual exhibit that goes online Tuesday, accessible
through her website: satomikawai.com
Isaac Hamlet
Iowa City Press-Citizen
9/1/24, 10:40 PM University of Iowa graduate shows multimedia project on womanhood
https://www.press-citizen.com/story/news/2021/05/29/woman-hood-virtual-exhibit-has-creatives-interpret-interviews-art-pieces/5184092001/1/3
The virtual exhibit is comprised of interviews with 10 Iowa-based women. These interviews,
each of which originally ran roughly an hour-long, have been edited down to be presented
alongside art inspired by them.
"The artists who have created work in response to this work include myself, Satomi,
Allison Heady and Dani Sigler," said Vero Rose Smith, formerly at the University of Iowa
Stanley Museum of Art, now an artist based out of Chicago. "So all of our work will be
displayed on our website and have a small artist's statement about how the work relates back
to the interviews that Satomi and Alison have done over the past couple of years.”
Each artist took their own approach in interpreting the interviews as art pieces. Heady sat in
on the interviews as they were conducted, beginning portraits of the interviewees which were
completed once the abridged interviews had been created.
More:The artist of creation says final farewell to Iowa City
Smith herself had planned to have a musical component to her pieces but ended up creating
10 wearable pieces of three-dimensional art with a particular word that synthesized each
respective interview for her.
"I like to do a lot of analysis especially around the linguistics and the words that people use to
describe their experience," she said. "For many of our interviewees (English) is their second
or third or fourth language. The words that they choose are so intentional.”
In addition to having the virtual exhibition on display through the month, there will also be a
short virtual Zoom reception for the art piece on Saturday, June 5 at 7:30 p.m. During the
reception, artists will speak about their work.
Information regarding access to this event can be found on its Facebook event page "Virtual
Reception of 'Woman: hood' Iowa City."
While nothing is as of yet cemented, Kawai hopes to make this exhibit a recurring one. Her
desire is to have another set of interviews be interpreted by artists again in the future.
“It’s important to share our experience and know each other and understand each other,"
Kawai said. “If we pass our information to many people we can share experience and then
understand each other."
Isaac Hamlet covers arts, entertainment and culture at the Press-Citizen. Reach him at
ihamlet@press-citizen.com or (319)-688-4247, follow him on Twitter @IsaacHamlet.
9/1/24, 10:40 PM University of Iowa graduate shows multimedia project on womanhood
https://www.press-citizen.com/story/news/2021/05/29/woman-hood-virtual-exhibit-has-creatives-interpret-interviews-art-pieces/5184092001/2/3
9/1/24, 10:40 PM University of Iowa graduate shows multimedia project on womanhood
https://www.press-citizen.com/story/news/2021/05/29/woman-hood-virtual-exhibit-has-creatives-interpret-interviews-art-pieces/5184092001/3/3