Denise Uyehara
Denise Uyehara is a performance artist, writer, and director based in Tucson who has been presented in London, Tokyo, Helsinki and the U.S. She engages in many disciplines – performance art, invisible projects in public space, projects that interact with an implicate the audience. Her most recent work focuses on memory, time travel, crisis, and identity.
As part of the 5th World Collective, she collaborated with Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists to create “Shooting Columbus,” exploring what this land would look like if settlers never arrived. She also partnered with Pan Left, Jason Aragon, and local artists to create “Dreams/Sueños,” a multi-disciplinary performance inspired by interviews with undocumented women in South Tucson. “Senkotsu (Mis)Translation Project” is a series of works examining the U.S. occupation in Okinawa, while “Big Head” investigates connections between the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II and the treatment of Muslim Americans in a post-9/11 world.
Her work is supported by the MAP Fund, Project Grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts, The C.O.L.A. Fellowship from the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, A travel fellowship from the Asian Arts Council to conduct field work in Okinawa, The NY Community Trust/Artist Recovery Fund. She holds an MFA in Dance from UCLA, and is a former Sacred Naked Nature Girl, mother, and university lecturer. She serves as Program Manager of Artist Services at the Southwest Folklife Alliance.
Maps of City & Body (Kaya Press) documents her work.
Residency/Fellowship
Community of Practice 2025
Website
Location
Tucson, AZ
© Santa Fe Art Institute / Santa Fe, New Mexico /