Some of the moments when when I was in the roughest times of my life, being able to to not only survive, thrive, but also then, you know, achieve and sort of build the world around me, you know, that was insulated from some of the pain of growing up and insulated from some of those negative issues.

You know, the access that one gets to story and to camaraderie in and community through offering new ideas has been very, very, profoundly helpful, you know, into my personal story.

Hi.

My name is Glenn Kaino, and this is how art changed me.

I grew up in a suburb of la, in a small town called Cerritos that was halfway between L.A. and Orange County, and at the time was a pasture, cow farm town, but, small town, suburban neighborhood.

I felt at a young age I was, attracted to making art particulars, making my own toys.

And my family didn't necessarily come from, you know, we would have toys.

But but every time we would get a toy, let's say there would be a set or a, you know, vehicle or whatever.

And we were not able to afford all of the vehicles.

But, you know, we'd see people across the street who would have them.

And so I would make my own vehicles and make our own sets, literally build the worlds first play with them.

At some point, all the other kids wanted to come over and play with our sets.

Because because they were unique.

And, you know, that that was empowering in a way.

I had a few young mentor, other elementary school, high school kids who were making stuff as well.

And, you know, we would go to each other's houses and, and, you know, learn about making work, whether it's stop motion animation, films with small little cameras that our parents had or toys out of paper towel tubes and whatnot.

It was very sophisticated for what we were.

But I think the first awareness I had of the idea that art was a business or a job was I saw an art magazine, there was a Damien Hirst cover of flash Art magazine, and I was like this, this amazing looking shark on the cover of an art magazine.

How is this art?

And I dug in and it transformed my knowledge of that.

There was a landscape of art where people were artists, and not just kids making things in their backyard.

And that was inspiring and exciting.

And then I dug into the history of art and, and really, you know, that kind of never left.

I had a rough childhood, and I was, kicked out of high schools and, into gang culture or whatnot.

And I actually was able to leave and in and, and then survive, you know, through, making art, practically speaking, as an artist, you know, in those worlds, I think that everyone is inspired by the idea of generation and creation.

And so I was getting a little bit of a pass, you know, and that sort of practically created the opportunity, you know, for me to, to get out of a zone of society that I grew up in, you know, that was not as generative or generous.

So it's always been there for me.

And any of these moments of crisis, just thinking about things, you know, in new ways and inspiring people around me, has always been there to help, help me for me.

And artwork happens when there's something in the world that I'm interested in understanding that I don't quite understand.

There's a story or a reference point, and, and and somehow it catalyzes into an idea, and I say I use art and the opportunities that art has afforded me to put together people, places, things and stories that don't normally have a chance to me.

But art services as a really great layer of abstraction, that that allows for collaboration and camaraderie of ideas, fellowship of ideas, because the expectations are just that.

It's imaginative.

The only expectation on a good artwork is that everyone is imaginative together.

And that we for something new that that, inspires people.

My practice in studio, I'm driven by what I loosely call a constellation of concerns.

Larger thematic explorations that I have had throughout my entire career.

For a long time, my Asian Americanness, my Japanese Americanness, did not factor overtly into the work entering the cultural landscape.

When I did, you know, sort of mid late 90s, early early aughts, I was advised by scholars, critics, curators to focus on what they would call bigger issues.

When you internalize as an Asian American artist, is that being Asian American is not a big issue.

You know, in the in the last 20 years, the world has changed in really incredible ways and expansive, inclusive ways.

Most recently, you know, I did I have been doing a more deep, expressive exploration, you know, of that, part of my life and part of my, my story.

And come to find out that, of course, encoded within the entire body of work throughout the, you know, years of my practice, there have been principles, both, formal, conceptual, that have, in fact, deeply resonated with my cultural histories.

And that's something that I think I've always known and have been embedded, but something that I'm very excited about embracing, particularly as it comes to the moment and the times we're in and, and the contradiction between the power of owning your own story and your own story, but the power of generosity and sharing stories.

So more recently, I have been working in film and in linear media.

And so the object I brought with me today is a super high end film camera called the XL 2000, and it was actually made in 1981 by Fisher Price.

And it is a toy camera that you, can record video and, audio on audio cassettes.

Many people these days have no idea what this is.

This is an audio cassette.

You know, again, we're in a moment where the quest for higher resolution and higher fidelity and the quest to be to have digital media and, and fabricated media look like real life is a, a cultural priority.

Real life is already real life.

So us trying to figure out how to replicate real life without a point of view, that that's where we get into crisis of people freaking out about AI or whatnot because, AI and, digital media can absolutely accelerate the pathways towards recreating the known because the known is a roadmap.

And for something with lower resolution, for me, point of view has no roadmap.

You know, point of view is a path that you have to discover, creating something that is photorealistic on a camera that just gets better and better, better and more looks more like real life is, is, is is a pathway that we all can, can understand.

So I'm really excited about working with this to create, images that we don't understand and images that if we blur our eyes, can't tell are real or imagined.

And I found also when no one expects a result, sometimes you get the best results that there should be no expectation except for to imagine a better world through our dedication, through our insistence that art has relevance.

We can then insist that that, you know, the world is not yet figured out because there is a magic to seeing a good film.

There's a magic of seeing a good artwork to having a good song that changes the way people understand the world in fundamental ways.

And I think it's fundamentally, fundamentally important, you know, that as we support young artists and we support artists at large to be able to have safe spaces to go freely.

Imagine, because only in those spaces where we actually figure out how the world works, there are people in the world who are imagining a world without art.

For us.

And, and, you know, we we are, in a moment where people are trying to create a world without art because a world without art is a world without point of view and without point of view is a world that's just and subservient and, you know, in service to, to the norm.

You know, we're sitting in a moment where for many of us, our stories and our backstories are the last things that we think we can own and possess and be proud of because everything else is being stripped away and taken away.

And I do think that there's a moment of generosity that needs to happen within, cross-cultural storytelling.

Let's not use the power of our imagination.

To imagine a world without art.

There are jackasses already trying to do that for us, for.

For.