Rika Ohara Rika Ohara was born in Saitama, Japan, in 1961, where she drew and painted from an early age. Her historian father, teacher mother, World War-survivor grandmother and socialist cousins all encouraged and contributed to her artistic pursuits. Arriving in the U.S. in 1980, she studied with Czech surrealist photographer Vilem Kriz at California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland and began combining various media in conceptual art works, film/video and installations. Her first performance piece (in a class taught by movement artist Simone Forti at School of Visual Arts in New York) combined dance, film projection and suspended fabric sculpture. Her MFA thesis project at California Institute of the Arts (1985) was a dance-theater adaptation of Oscar Wilde´s Salomé, in collaboration with choreographer Tracy Rhoades. It was also during her years at CalArts that she stumbled upon a subject that would propel her into a series of performance art pieces that spanned more than a decade: nuclear destruction and its socio-psychological significance. Neither Garlic nor Beans (1983-85/88) was presented at SUSHI, Inc. as part of NeoFest in 1985 and was named "Among the Best" by San Diego Gayzette along with works by Rachel Rosenthal and Eric Bogosian. Astro Boy Meets Godzilla (1986-87) followed, focusing on shared experiences of Japanese and American children and introducing the "Trade War" motif she would later explore in Tokyo Rose. Concurrently, Ohara developed her ideas and technique for sequential use of still images by working as a still photographer on a laserdisc project. After a tour of Germany and Holland in 1988, Ohara began working on Shelter, based on a dream she had in Berlin -- of awaiting nuclear destruction in a glass shelter. The piece developed in a series of site-specific installation/performances on city streets (stretching fabric between buildings as a projection screen), on the beach and in performance venues around town and on tour. Ohara & The Nuclear Family toured with Tokyo Rose (1993-95) -- a multimedia examination of racial and sexual xenophobia -- throughout the Western U.S. They were ready to extend the tour internationally when financial problems closed the Paris American Center´s theater just four months before their May 1996 performance dates. The Kitchen in New York and the Center for Contemporary Arts Glasgow, among others, also postponed presentation following the world-wide art recession. Rebounding from the disappointment, Ohara produced Shelter (Phase VII) (Huntington Beach Art Center, 1997), shooting 2,000 slides from new image sources, adding video and reworking the choreography. Future exhibitions include the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, Australia and the Plaza Gallery, Tokyo. Ohara continues to create hybrid art projects, combining performance, media and installations, as well as choreographing and directing others in theater and new music pieces. Her works have been funded by New Langton Arts/NEA Regional Arts grant (1995-1996), California Arts Council Touring and Presenting Program (1995-97) and the City of Los Angeles (1990-91; 91-92; 92-93; 94-95), among others. One of the first to publicly criticize the abuses of multiculturalism (1992), she has contributed cultural essays, film and book reviews to the L.A. Weekly (1992-97), spoken at University of Kentucky and the California Museum of Photography, as well as on radio and television. Her works have been seen at: Galerie E43 IM Treppenhaus, Kino Eiszeit, Schokofabrik, Tempodrom, Berlin; The Performance Art Festival, Cleveland (Ohio); Het Apolohuis, Eindhoven (Holland); The Sprengel Museum, VVK, Hannover; Westwerk, Hamburg; Honolulu Arts Academy; University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu; Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitons (LACE), Japanese-American Cultural Community Center Plaza, Oranges and Sardines Gallery, The California Plaza, The Festival of the Five Senses at Hollywood Moguls, Los Angeles; SUSHI, Inc., San Diego; The Lab, San Francisco; The Stage, San Jose; Highways Performance Space, Santa Monica and others.