The Distance Between

I took my father to see "The Distance Between", an art exhibit exploring the bicultural existence of North American Asians, when it came to Toronto's Art Gallery of Ontario in June 1997. Canadian Jin-Me Yoon's work was a film loop including images of the World War II internment camps, with a stream-of-consciousness voice-over which included the line, "Not to have experienced it, but to have inherited it." American Kim Yasuda's work featured a chest drawer hanging in mid-air. Only when you get close enough to look in do you realize that it has no base, and therefore is (and always will be?) empty, despite the expectations raised by external appearances. I was transfixed by this piece in particular, and must have been standing there for some time. My father circled back, wondering what I found so interesting. "What is this?" he snorted. "It's nothing." To him it was meaningless. To me it said everything. The distance between. --Tadaaki Hiruki, 10 January 1999