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Sights & Sounds: Taro Hattori

Jiajun Wang / cropped and resized

Sights & Sounds is your weekly guide to the Bay Area arts scene. Artist Taro Hattori told KALW’s Jen Chien about three wonderful events happening around the Bay this weekend.

The Golden Gate Block Party will take place in the parking lot of the Golden Gate branch of the Oakland Public Library. It's a free, family-friendly barbecue with hands-on demos by Kala print-makers, games for kids, musical performances and neighborhood information. It’s organized to get people more informed about Commons Archive, a neighborhood memory bank where neighbors contribute and annotate the archive materials, adding their stories and images. The block party will take place on the afternoon of Saturday, May 27th from 1:00 - 4:00 p.m.

HATTORI: I'm so interested in like how the personal history or personal life or the history of your relatives, how we can communicate by showing those ... very personal historical materials.

courtesy of Kala Gallery

Lyrics, Gestures and Games is an exhibition at the Kala Gallery that features works by Bay Area ceramic artist Jim Melchert, artist Midori Harima, and Bay Area poet, Lyn Hejinian. The exhibit explores interplay among art-making, chance related process, and guidelines generated by everyday activities and gestures. Lyrics, Gestures and Games will be up through July 12th. 

HATTORI: Lynn Hejinian, she is my favorite poet ... her drawing work is very similar to how Lyn has been creating her poetry too.

THIS IS WHAT I WANT is an annual performance festival which uses queer desire as a lens to examine phenomena of our time. This year's theme, TENDER NIGHTS, has artists looking at the moral explosion of the intersection of desire and youth under pressure, setting the stories in the Tenderloin. The youth artists will walk with the audience around the neighborhood, so comfortable shoes are advised. There will be performances May 25th through May 27th. 

HATTORI: They're creating that work and also an interactive mapping project that people can experience through their handheld advices ... especially this year's should be very interesting.