Exinclusivity - Space of Inclusion is a site-specific multi-media installation about migration experiences translated through music, video, storytelling and performance. Working with several refugee support organizations in the Bay Area, the project explores how cultural expressions such as singing and writing can support the process of psychological and physical survival throughout experiences of displacement.

Building on a two-year creative relationship with Kala through Print Public, Exinclusivity – Space of Inclusion evolves from Taro Hattori’s current and past projects, large-scale sculptural works made from everyday materials like cardboard, drywall, and bricks, videos exploring belonging, and participatory experiments about political challenges and social conflict. His recent project Rolling Counterpoint, a roving Japanese tea house that he built during a residency at Montalvo Arts Center, and took to partner sites to invite people in to have conversations, share stories and experiences inspired his current work.

Montalvo’s press release describes the context of Rolling Counterpoint: “Historically, the Japanese teahouse served as a space for contemplation and communion with others…in 16th-century Japan, against the backdrop of civil war, tea masters became political go-betweens while teahouses served as radically egalitarian spaces of nonviolence and provided opportunities for rational discourse, conviviality, political consensus and peace.” Exinclusivity – Space of Inclusion builds on the foundation of Rolling Counterpoint, creating new spaces where people can share stories and experiences, address conflict, foster understanding, and imagine new ways of being together. The current political anxiety and a sense of collective angst here in the US have brought questions about belonging to the forefront of the public imagination. What does belonging mean today? How do we promote a sense of cultural empathy? Taro’s work delves into these important and timely questions.

Sholeh Asgary

Shaghayegh Cyrous

Sherab Dolma

Robin Gurung

Jyoti Gurung

Project Collaborator:

Byron Au Yong (composer)

ARTogether

Asian Refugee United

Bay Area Bhutanese Youth

Burma Refugee Family Network (BRFN)

The Center for Empowering Refugees and Immigrants (CERI)

East Bay Refugee and Immigrant Forum

Amy Lam

Maw Shein Win

California College of the Arts

Christy Chan

California Arts Council

Zellerbach Family Foundation

Meyer Sound

To encourage the visitors to be self-reflective about their own experience, a table space was set with the following questions.

Having lived in a restricted refugee camp so long, one of the participants
described his condition as that of a bird whose wings had been clipped. 

   Have you ever felt like

      a bird in a cage,

      a bird who can't fly or

      a bird who can't perch?

   Please tell us about such experience of yours.