In her first solo museum exhibition, Grandma Entertainment Franchise, artist Yoshie Sakai brings together three immersive installations produced over the last three years: Grandma Day Spa, Grandma Nightclub, and Grandma Amusement Park. These three distinct but interconnected installations, composed of Sakai’s video and sculptural work, satirically reproduce public sites of leisure, re-imagined with grandmothers as their target demographic.

Grandma Entertainment Franchise stems from Sakai’s reflections on her own grandmother, or obaa-chan, who came to live with her family when the artist was nine years old. Sakai’s memories of her obaa-chan open a searing, tragicomic inquiry into society’s obsession with youth and innovation, as evident in the outsourcing of elderly care, urban redevelopment and disinvestment, marketing demographics, and our notions of desirability, success, and the good life.

Grandma Entertainment Franchise builds on Sakai’s probing, affect-laden excavations of capitalism, family dynamics and social structures, and the psychology that writes them in space. This exhibition critiques capitalism’s production of space and ways of being, while also drawing on popular forms of entertainment and media to engage diverse audiences, especially those historically devalued, ignored, and seen as burdens.