I Am the Art NOBUO KUBOTA

Description:

In partnership with Powell Street Festival Society Western Front presented a screening of Annette Mangaard’s documentary I Am the Art NOBUO KUBOTA (2025) at The Cinematheque.

I Am the Art is a bold, yet intimate portrait of multidisciplinary artist Nobuo Kubota, a Japanese Canadian trailblazer whose creative practice never stopped evolving. Over the course of his life, Nobuo consistently pushed against convention, drawing from Japanese art and spiritual practices to shape a body of work spanning sculpture, painting, sound poetry, installation, film, avant-garde jazz, and live performance.

As a former student of Nobuo’s, Mangaard’s film not only presents a study of an artist at work, but a portrait grounded in trust and longstanding connection. The film moves fluidly between Kubota’s expansive creative life and the quieter, more intimate realities of his personal world—his experiences as a survivor of Japanese Canadian internment during the Second World War, and his devoted role as caregiver to his wife, Lee, who lived with advanced Alzheimer’s disease. Alongside observation of Kubota’s daily practices, the film features rare archival footage of his work with the Canadian Creative Music Collective and the Artists Jazz Band, as well as video performances made while in residence at Western Front in the 1990s. 

The screening was introduced by Shaun Inouye and Kiel Torres and was followed by a conversation between filmmaker Annette Mangaard, and Vancouver-based artist Cindy Mochizuki. A Q&A period was facilitated by Vanessa Matsubara. 

Presented in partnership with Powell Street Festival Society and The Cinematheque.