Miya Hannan is an artist with countless stories to share, with the most recent ones involving her journey to Reno, first as an associate professor at UNR, and now also as the Graduate Director of the Master of Fine Arts program.
Her art has been displayed from coast to coast in the US, as well as internationally. Everywhere she goes, she finds that humans have unique responses to her work. Some are grateful, and some just don’t know what to say. That’s because the subject of much of Miya’s work is death.
On top of mentoring and educating other artists, Miya stays busy producing her own sculptures, drawings, and installations. I sat with her recently under a shady tree at a local coffee shop, where I had the honor of learning more about the story behind her artwork.
Miya has lived in Reno for the past seven years, and before that she was a California resident. Originally, however, Miya is from Japan. “I came to the United States just to learn English. And I was learning English, but they told me that I had to have a major. I wasn't sure what to do, but…I did like–you know, drawing, and making sculptures. So I just took one drawing class. That changed my life.”
While still living in Japan, and before her career started as an artist, Miya worked in hospitals and emergency rooms as a medical professional. “I worked for a hospital for seven years. You do have to face a lot of death,” she says. “And if you work for a hospital, you have to have a good understanding of death. (Some) will say that people who work for a hospital tend to develop their own philosophy, or their own poetic view, about death. (We) have to somehow develop (our) own understanding, to be okay every day.”
Many people think of science and art as two very different fields of study, but Miya doesn’t see it that way. I asked her how her view of science and medicine intersects with her art, and she told me that, for her, “science and art are the same thing.” If you experience Miya’s art, you might agree. “Both (science and art) are just trying to understand the world,” she says. “And they talk about the same thing. I can talk about the same thing using art language, versus scientific (language).”
For more information about Miya Hannan and her work, visit: https://www.miyahannan.com/
In some of her sculptures, Miya has used phone books and plaster to create bone-like structures jutting out of fabric. This creates an image of spinal cords, intertwined with roots, laid across a white earth. In other works, Miya has used bone ash– and she’s often asked where she acquires it. “Bone ash is easy,” she says, “because it's one of the ceramic materials…so if you go to a ceramic store, you can easily get bone ash.”
The use of these materials signifies death, but it goes much deeper than that for her. “Bone ash is very important culturally– for my culture, because we cremate the body,” she told me. “98% of Japanese cremate their bodies…In the funeral, we are the ones who pick up the bones– all the relatives have to pick up the bones, the remains, and put them in a container. So we have a whole ritual around bone ash. We really respect bone ash as our ancestor’s reminder.”
“Personally, because I went through two grandfathers’ deaths, that was an inspiring event for me. You know, I was young when my grandpa died and it was kind of shocking…to see all of the cremation, and the bones come out…Going through that ritual gave me the idea that my grandpa, at that time, just changed form, instead of being dead. You know, I started thinking…this is just another form of being alive,” the artist says.
Miya’s work can be used as a vessel for conversation. But in the US, and western culture, the topic of death is often considered taboo. “I always get criticism from people, ‘what if they don’t understand Asian culture?’” Miya recounts. “I’m not really expecting them to understand how Asians think about death. I first want them to understand…the idea with this is based on the individual. Even if you grew up in the same house– your brother, your mom, dad– (they) all may have a different idea about how they want to die, and how they think about death–it’s completely individual.”
This disparity in cultural views and expectations has created challenges for those who immigrate to the US, or for those who were raised with different rituals and beliefs. “For example,” Miya says, “Asians really believe in cremation and reincarnation and such. But western doctors don’t understand that, when (Asian people) die. Or in the crematory- ‘no no no you can’t even touch bones!’ We have to follow what the western doctors think about death. In hospitals, some Asians have a very uncomfortable time, because their philosophies are very different.”
This is part of why Miya creates the art that she does. She wants to expand our collective view of the meaning of death– and life that precedes it. “I want people to have a moment to think about (their) own fate…what they want, and how they think about death, you know. I just try to give a chance for that. We can’t avoid (death). I have so many people that have a problem because they don’t want to talk about it, because they deny it…but nobody can avoid it. And I think denial actually causes more trouble to people.”
I asked Miya about how her work has been received here in Reno, Nevada. She recalled previous cities where her art has been on display. In Richmond, Virginia, she was surprised by the audience’s acceptance. “They actually had the best reaction,” she told me. “I was afraid because that’s a city (with history of) the Civil War …so will they really take this well?” She wondered. “But it was the opposite. That’s why they really understood (the need to) think about death.” In California, Miya says crowd reactions were “half and half.” She remembers a professor who told her, “‘Miya, California is a place that people come to forget about Asian (culture), and dying.’”
Here in Reno, Miya had “no clue” how things would go for her, and how locals would view her work. “There aren’t too many Asians here. (With) such Asian oriented work, you know, how are people going to see my artwork?” For artists looking to introduce concepts to a diverse group of people, coming from many different backgrounds, of course this is a challenge. After some thought, though, she remembered: “I had a good comment from Indigenous people, because they are also nature-oriented. Their philosophy has a similarity to Asian philosophy… some indigenous artists– people, came to me and said, ‘I really understand what you’re talking about.’”
So, what has Miya been working on recently? A couple of summers ago, she had an artist residency in Montana, where she stumbled across a cemetery that housed about 100 tombstones bearing Japanese names. “It was a complete accident,” she told me.
“Nobody knew why they were there. They all died around the same period of time, they were all young. They all died in their early 30s, late 20s, some of them younger. So I got really curious about this, and after digging into a little bit of the history, it turns out they were Japanese railroad workers, who came across the ocean to work construction.”
Miya found both connection and inspiration in this cemetery in Montana. “There’s a lot of questions that came to me…is there anything I can do for these people? All I could think was, as an immigrant myself, to remember what they did for us. And to think about them crossing the ocean to have a better life…that’s what I did myself. So I had a, sort of, deep connection. I felt like– ok, somebody should be doing this job. While researching it, I can make artwork that remembers and honors them. I have this project–I’m doing this installation and making drawings and sculptures for them.”
As a renowned artist, Miya has the platform to honor the memory of these otherwise forgotten Japanese railroad workers. But she’s doing even more than that, as part of her current sabbatical, taking her back to Japan, where she will keep working on this project.
“I’m going back to their hometown, to collect soil…and bring back their soil to their tombstones. That’s my project for this fall. Because they wanted to go home, but they never could. Everybody wants to go home when they die…very much so for the Japanese. So, this is my own appreciation for them.”
Miya not only wants to encourage conversations around death, but she models important ways to honor death, as well.
One of her current projects, Patria Soli, delivers homeland soil to those who are not able to return to the place that they call home. “Soil became one of my very important materials,” Miya says. “Part of my philosophy is that all of human history is somehow recorded in the soil. People walk in the same spot, and the land remembers who was there.”
So, let’s talk about death. And let’s talk about life, and history, and tradition, and different cultures as it comes to death as well. Miya Hannan is seeking to curate these conversations, and perhaps we as a society–as humans– should start to think about it much more.