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Microphones and Brushes—An Exercise in Radical Empathy (2022)

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By Sach Takayasu

Mom’s stories about being a teenager during World War II in Japan mesmerized me. I wanted to know more: to see what she saw and feel what she felt. So, we expanded our collaboration beyond the microphone to making paintings—together. This exhibit shares our exercise in radical empathy. Also, a photograph triggered her memories and that recollection became a short story.

OHMA students and alumni continue to push the envelope on approaches to oral history. I invite you to explore their innovative works and consider engaging them for your oral history project.

This video introduces my approach to "radical empathy using microphones and brushes”

Listen to this audio piece to hear how, through the oral history process, my mom’s recollections of her parents (pictured below) developed into a story of their relationship:




 

This page has tags:

  1. Listening For Traces: Learning You, Unlayering Me (2025) Carlin Liu Zia
  2. ‘Heirlooming’: Rethinking Memory and Relationality through Embodiment and Collapsed Time (2025) Carlin Liu Zia
  3. Timeline Carlin Liu Zia
  4. Eye to 'I': An Oral History Exhibition in Virtual Reality (2023) Carlin Liu Zia
  5. What Makes Hearing Possible? Towards a Practice of (Self)Reflective Listening (2022) Carlin Liu Zia
  6. Web Carlin Liu Zia
  7. A few minutes Carlin Liu Zia
  8. Photography and Visual Art Carlin Liu Zia
  9. Freedom, liberation Carlin Liu Zia
  10. Art, music, creativity Carlin Liu Zia
  11. Home, traditions, belonging Carlin Liu Zia
  12. Intergenerational conversation Carlin Liu Zia
  13. War Carlin Liu Zia
  14. Co-creation & shared learning Carlin Liu Zia
  15. Edited Audio Carlin Liu Zia
  16. Video Carlin Liu Zia
  17. Family archives Carlin Liu Zia

Contents of this tag:

  1. I Heard it Before I Ever Saw it: Tattooing and the US Prison System (2022)
  2. Nobody's Diary (2022)
  3. Honoring El Moro: A Cuban Collective Memory (2022)
  4. It's Not About Me (2022)

This page references: