Electric Neon Clock
Artists: A.S.M. Kobayashi
Art Gallery of Mississauga (2026)
Electric Neon Clock is a hybrid, immersive work by A.S.M. Kobayashi that mixes documentary, performance, and installation. Born and raised in Mississauga, and based in Toronto and New York City, Kobayashi is known for her performative projects that take deep dives into found archival material. For this exhibition, the artist turns to her own family archives, which are part of Canada’s history of forcibly incarcerating and dispossessing thousands of Canadians of Japanese heritage.
This project began when Kobayashi first encountered the Canadian government’s WWII custodial file on her great-grandfather and subsequently discovered case files belonging to other relatives, their friends, and a wider community of displaced people of Japanese descent. These historical documents detail inventories of their homes and businesses, and include government correspondence, internal memos, and court transcripts. All adults named in the original documents have passed away, leaving their children, now seniors, as bearers of the only first-person accounts of this period. These living relatives were infants and young children at the time, making the custodial file the most enduring testimony of the artist’s family during those years.
Electric Neon Clock asks: How can the artist liberate forensic practices and state records to undermine their original intention and use them to reconstruct the community and families they were designed to dismantle? Relying on the custodial file as a guide, Kobayashi adapts this record into an installation and live performance detailing her family’s experience. Using video, sound, archival documents, a substantial photo archive, and the innovative format of a live auction, Kobayashi welcomes audiences to delve into her family’s file and join her in assessing the inventory’s value and humanizing its contents.
https://www.artgalleryofmississauga.com/events/a-s-m-kobayashi-electric-neon-clock/