WAS HERE / NOW GONE

Premiering 2025

‘Was Here / Now Gone’ is an experimental film by AAPI performance collective IS/LAND. With some members of IS/LAND having grown up in Ann Arbor during the 1980’s, there is a keen sense of how much the city has transformed over the last forty years. With many storefronts and institutions that were cultural anchors (Borders, Schoolkids Records, Stucchi’s, etc.) from the city now gone, ‘Was Here / Now Gone’ is both an elegy for a time now past but also an exploration of how memory itself can both secure and tether us to the past. The idea of what was used to be there and what’s there now, and how we can see it as an appreciation of it being part of our lives, is at the same time a reality of change and how culture changes. Our hope is that this performance encourages our audience to live grounded in gratitude for what came before while also embracing the potential of this city’s future.

Visuals + Sound: Chien-An Yuan
Voice + Poem: Kyunghee Kim
Producer: S Jean Lee

This film was produced by the Ann Arbor District Library as part of its Ann Arbor 200 Project Commemorating Ann Arbor’s Bicentennial.