Fri, May 08
|Logan Center Screening Room (Rm 201)
Artist Activities: Tatsu Aoki at Film Studies Center
"Rapturous: Tatsu Aoki, a Chicago Asian-American Avant-Garde" is presented by Tien-Tien Jong and Carson Wang as the Spring 2026 Film Studies Center Graduate Student Curatorial Selection. Tatsu Aoki in person, in conversation with Jacqueline Stewart. Free admission
Time & Location
May 08, 2026, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Logan Center Screening Room (Rm 201), Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E 60th St, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
About this event
Friday, May 8 at 7pm Logan Center Screening Room, #201 Reva and David Logan Center
From the organizers
Presented by Tien-Tien Jong and Carson Wang as the Spring 2026 Film Studies Center Graduate Student Curatorial Selection. With Tatsu Aoki in person, in conversation with Jacqueline Stewart.
Though he is best known internationally as a jazz musician, for more than 45 years, Tatsu Aoki has been making avant-garde films in and about Chicago. These films showcase his remarkable skills in optical printing to create dazzling abstract images that stretch the boundaries of analog film technology. As the recipient of a recent Avant-Garde Masters grant by the National Film Preservation Foundation, this evening features new restorations by the Chicago Film Society of his singular films, including 3725 and Rapturous. Aoki’s films are intimately tied to his identities as both an Asian American and a Chicagoan since immigrating from Japan in 1979.
Trained under Stan Brakhage, Peter Kubelka, and Sharon Couzin at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), his films express a lighthearted, playful force that nevertheless assiduously asserts the immigrant’s conspicuous presence, whether in the form of a Japanese doll or a kendama toy. This selection of 16mm shorts from 1980-2009 depict locations in Chicago with an emphasis on Asian American themes and references, highlighting Aoki’s interests in urban space and immigrant identity. These films will take you to iconic sites such as Wrigleyville, Lake Street under the L tracks, and the Lincoln Park Zoo, only you may no longer recognize these familiar places after Tatsu Aoki has transformed them. Tatsu Aoki will be present in-person for the event, in discussion with Jacqueline Stewart.
16mm prints courtesy of Tatsu Aoki, including a premiere of new restorations by the Chicago Film Society; TRT approx. 90 minutes. Presented with support from Asian American Midwest Progressives and Asian Americans Advancing Justice | Chicago.
This event is free and open to the public. Doors will open thirty minutes prior to showtime.
For more information visit: https://filmstudiescenter.uchicago.edu/event/rapturous-tatsu-aoki-chicago-asian-american-avant-garde