Scream!LionDogs

"In 1992, there was a brutal racially motivated killing of a Asian American youth by Neo Nazi skinheads that hit very close to home for me. One of my closest friend’s sister was married to the killer and it occurred in our home region of the Pacific Northwestern USA. I made a performance work that explored the story with the hope of understanding how human beings can resort to such brutality.  Through intense and difficult research I came to find that we are all capable of such atrocities given desperate and lost circumstances. I felt the need to lay the lost spirit to rest, and in that spirit we made that piece.  During the process of creating this work, we learned about the Entertete Kunst (Degenerate Art) Exhibition in Nazi Germany which had an unintended backlash proving the transformational power of art, which inspired our group's name." 

     - Haruko Crow Nishimura

1999