Hidemi Takagi: Identities

IDENTITIES | Press Release | Events

June 13 – July 26, 2026

Opening Reception: Saturday, June 13th, 7-9pm

Open Source Gallery is pleased to present IDENTITIES, a project by Hidemi Takagi.

IDENTITIES is a photography and interview project centering mixed-race teenagers. Takagi builds long term relationships with the teenagers to gather stories that are both visual and verbal, composing complex and whimsically self-costuming portraits of mixed-race life and its public and private faces. Through IDENTITIES, Takagi documents biracial/multiracial people’s roots and the cultural tendrils that have grown and intertwined from them, and addresses the issues of mixed-race identity, racism, and immigration in America and other countries. 

Thus far, Takagi has worked with teenagers living in New York, New Jersey, Florida, Minnesota, and Japan. The photoshoot is planned in advance, with subjects wearing at least one item that represents their ethnic cultures, and photographs taken in places that they have a strong connection to. After the photoshoot, Takagi interviews the teenagers, asking them questions about their experiences, feelings, and how they connect to their peers and their parents’ cultures. At Open Source, visitors can hear the teenagers discuss their ideologies, political engagement, public presentations of themselves, and the impacts of their cultural experiences and backgrounds. 

Hidemi Takagi is a photographer, visual artist, and social practitioner who was born in Kyoto, Japan and lives in Brooklyn, NY with her Haitian husband and biracial daughter. For her past photography projects, Takagi has worked with various immigrant and marginalized communities, as well as her NYC home neighborhoods. She photographs the color, joy and life of the people who are living in those diverse communities to create meaningful and moving art and explore the intimacies of public engagement. Takagi has exhibited both nationally and internationally (London, Madrid, Tel Aviv, Berlin, and Paris). Her notable selected exhibitions include Brooklyn Museum, the Bronx Museum of the Arts, Queens Museum, BRIC Media Art Center, and the Nathan Cummings Foundation.

Photo by Argenis Apolinario