EAST ASIAN VIDEO FRAMES
Curator: Minna Valjakka
In 2014, the three-year video project focuses on the varying modes of contemporary art emerging in Tokyo— both in and outside of the art institutions. Since the end of the 1980s the forms of contemporary graffiti and street art have started to occupy the public space in Tokyo. Although the original inspiration derived from the styles of New York graffiti, the local creators have actively developed indigenous forms of expression and composed a vigorous, versatile urban art scene. During the spring, the series explores how does the local graffiti writers and artists feel about the scene in Tokyo? And how one of the youngest art communities, the local branch of the international movement, Free Art Friday Tokyo, established in the spring 2013, interacts with the scene?
In co-operation with: The SRK and Free Art Friday Tokyo
MEDIA RELEASE 07.02. – 25.05.2014
EAST ASIAN VIDEO FRAMES: Tokyo
Documentary “281_Anti Nuke”, to be screened during the summer, introduces the local street artist and his campaign which has continued already for three years in the streets of Tokyo. His aim is to remind Japanese about the long term consequences of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster and awake people to resist nuclear power.
In co-operation with: Uchujin/Adrian Storey for VICE Japan
After the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011, Japanese artists were shaken and puzzled – also about what art and artists could do. The first art work of this set, screened until 23 November, was created as a response. Chim↑Pom, an artist collective of six young Tokyoites, known for their unconventional art and exhibitions related to various social issues, decided to do
their bit. In order to raise solidarity, Chim↑Pom travelled to the disaster area. One of the results, a two-channel video art work “KI-AI 100” (2011) was created in co-operation with the Soma city’s youth. In the process, the shouting of improvised sentences one after another fostered a spirit of positive interaction and collaboration, in the vein of the short shouts (ki-ai) made in Japanese martial arts before or during the technique. The form is different, but the outcome of the “KI-AI
100” is similar: it startles the viewer, appals even, but also strengthens the fighting spirit to overcome the incomprehensible.
The second video art work of the autumn, screened from 25 November, captivates with a very different atmosphere. In his recent one-channel video art work “WAVY” (2014), MIYANAGA Akira (b. 1985), a young artist from Hokkaido but based in Kyoto, reveals the repetitions inherent to humanity, nature, society and urban life in various locations in Japan, including Tokyo. The
origin of this conceptual art work derives from the multilayered interconnections of Japanese words that include homonym “NAMI” written in two different kanji (並 / 波) and meaning, for instance, a line or row of things/ people, or a wave. The similar notion of recurrence can be found in English word “WAVY”. Relying on the visual poetry such as transparent layers, MIYANAGA leads and leaves us to think what being a human means in the changing scenes and acoustic worlds of Japanese society today.
In co-operation with: Art collective Chim↑Pom & Artist MIYANAGA Akira