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A R T, M U S I C & F I L M
TROORA MAGAZINE
A true San Francisco flower child, Eryn Kimura is creating art from the pains of the past.
E
ryn Kimura is a fifth generation Japanese and Chinese American artist born and raised in San Francisco. She has also lived in Kyoto, Japan, and Paris, France. In the course of my interview I asked her many questions, but it was the eloquence of her responses that really set the tone. I will leave you to decide the questions. …
I come from the depths of Glen Park canyon where coyotes and pot-smoking pre-teens cohabitate and roam. My great-great-grandma’s laundromat on the horse-carriage-filled Valencia street of the late 1800s. The 1970 Lowell High School “Welcome Back” dance when a young Nikkei buck from the Richmond caught eyes with young queen from the
PH OTO C R E DI T: KAR I OR V I K - @ KAR IOR V I K TI N T YPE S
BY MICHAEL DAKS
Eryn Kimura Sunset amidst a sea of pioneering acidtrippers; within the concrete caverns of the Bayshore freeway underpass where a good friend told me he resided. This is my Mama, the topography of my ancestors, my home: Frisco.
These lived experiences are not just my own, but ours, a part of the collective narrative and culture of San Francisco. As a fifth generation settler on Ramaytush Ohlone land (San Franciscan) and fifth generation Chinese and Japanese-American, I was fortunate to be raised by a collaborative, polycultural community that nourished my radical imagination. I grew up valuing the various narratives of struggle that built this golden city. But today, more than ever, this culture of collective struggle and love is becoming less visible and respected in the face of the almighty dollar.
