A girl is sitting on the boat, drifting along the water.

 

The animation Out/o explores the experience of being pushed and pulled by the magnetic flow of different cultures. Born in Japan and moving to the United States at a young age, I have often found myself wandering between the culture that I was born in and the culture I grew up in. Being so young, I was not “Japanese” before coming to the United States. Practicing the curves of the alphabet alongside the stops of hiragana, the open vowels of Japanese and the soft “r”s of English, with each letter and placement of my tongue, I became more American and felt more Japanese. 

 

The animation is my scrutinization of how the two cultures have influenced me as I grew, following the girl rocking in between the red and blue waves, trying to shift in and drift away from each color at certain occasions until she finds her way of embracing both.