project image
Sawako Nakayasu
2017.11.23

first performed on November 23, 2017
RIPTA R-Line, Providence, RI
performed once in 2017

SAWAKO NAKAYASU

Providence, RI
sawako@gmail.com
sawakonakayasu.net

2017.11.23
SAWAKO NAKAYASU

I boycotted Thanksgiving—I fasted, did not speak, and rode the bus (the R-line, same as my daily commute) from endpoint to endpoint all day. And I wrote poetry in a notebook—it is an iteration of an ongoing performance series in which I perform being a poet. The audience members were passive—they just happened to be there. No one asked, and I did not broadcast my “project” to anyone. I did not go out of my way to document the other riders on the bus; I did not want that to be the point. One of the reasons for doing this stemmed from considering my privileges in this small town of intense economic inequality. Other recent events also motivated this, like the demonstration by Pokanoket tribe members demanding the return of some of their sacred land. Later I attended an (unrelated) event where one of the speakers (a friend) began by thanking those who had made the event possible, including those whose labor was invisible. Later when I saw him I said I appreciated that comment, and also wondered out loud if we should be doing what they do in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand—beginning events with an “Acknowledgement of Country”—and he said, “What’s the point? Why not just give it back then?” And I thought, yeah that’s right—action. I didn’t have power to give the land back, but after that I decided to boycott Thanksgiving, the holiday of eating a huge feast to celebrate and be thankful for having been born on the privileged side of the grand narrative. Even after deciding on my boycott, I wondered if I would cave into one of the nice offers I received to join somebody’s holiday meal. I had many nice offers from dear, wonderful people and for that I am grateful. Sometime closer to the day itself, I made a new friend, who asked over e-mail if I had “plans for the weekend after the settler-colonialist-klepto-capitalist, nationalist holiday” and I said that I was free on “the weekend following the imperialist-genocidal-white-supremacist holiday.” On the first day, Thursday, I filled the notebook. On Friday, I transcribed it into an InDesign file. On Saturday I decided to counter the hegemony of “correct” English by performing an erasure, where the erased parts are actually still digitally there, just whited out.