Touch My Mumblings, Hug My Words, Kiss My Singing
Venue: Denchu Hirakushi House and Atelier / 旧平櫛田中邸アトリエAddress: 2-20-3 Uenosakuragi, Taito, Tokyo, 110-0002 Japan / 東京都台東区上野桜木2-20-3
Dates: 1/6/2023 (Thurs) - 4/6/2023 (Sun)
Artists: bones tan jones / Emily Karasawa Grabill / Sun Kim / Asato Kitamura / Yusuke Komatsubara / Minjae Kwak / Megumi Okawa / Mio Okido / Marlies Pahlenberg / Mingxiang Wang
Performers: Sakura Obata / Naoyuki Sakai / Eureka Toyoda
Soundscape Artist: Leonid Zvolinsky
This project traces the postmemory we can sense without having ever experienced. Through radical modernisation, westernisation, imperialism and colonialism, East Asian identities and relations shift between generations, creating challenges to understanding on personal, familial, and international scales. In search of a better understanding of ourselves and our cultural identity, we dive into the memories of our grandparents, but are caught in a tangled net of interweaved national histories, obscured by the murky waters of their personal experience. The director of this project, Sun Kim said. “My grandmother was dismissive of her memories, calling them “unimportant”. For her, life under colonial rule felt inappropriate to talk about. Despite her silence, I can feel I inherited her memories, haunted by her formless ghost.”
Organised in the narrative flow of “Eating (Possession) – Translating – Singing,” the exhibition stages polyphonic micro-narratives. In doing so, each work is tied into a larger narrative of personal stories about inherited memories and emancipation from the past. At the same time, the dense layers of each artwork sing their own voices.
Director: Sun Kim
Producer: Alissa Osada-Phornsiri
Assistant Producer: Guldiyar Dawut
Performance Director: Dan Dagondon
Performance Managers: Minano Hirano / Zhang Yiyi
Curators: Sun Kim / Chloe Paré / Finn Ryan
Graphic Designer: Cléo Verstrepen (Photography by Ching-Chuan Kuo)
PR: Sun Kim / Alissa Osada-Phornsiri
Video Translation: Hanna Hirakawa
Text Translation: Minano Hirano / Serena Yajima / Naoto John Tanaka
Organised by: (O)Kamemochi
Supported by: The Mutomai Fund for Music Creation, Education and Research
Cooperation: Ibara City, Okayama Prefecture, Ueno-Sakuragi Denchu Hirakushi House and Atelier,
NPO Taito Cultural and Historical Society, Arts management group ‘Yanaka no Okatte’
Artworks + Profiles
Eating (possession) / 食べる（所有する)
Artists present the inherited memory from the previous generation.
食べる（所有する)では、前世代から受け継いだ記憶について語ります。
1
Megumi Okawa / 大川 恵実
inHz / an heir 2021, 2021
inHz / an heir 2023, 2023
Jewelry and Knitted work with sound
Megumi Okawa works in various forms, such as wooden sculptures and voice recordings, and exhibits them in installations. Her aim is to bring attention back to the voices which have been devalued in the history. She is also a member of an artist collective ‘the fuu’, which aims to raise awareness of feminism through artworks or workshops.
2
Mio Okido / 大木戸美緒
Two readings, 2021
2 channels video installation
33’11”
Mio Okido (b. 1986, Japan) is interested in miscommunication and conflicts between people, especially those caused by differences in social class, race, ideology, nationality or cultural identity. She uses a variety of media and techniques, including two-dimensional works, installations, and action pieces, to produce artworks questioning these themes to society. Okido has studied at Berlin University of the Arts (Master of Arts, Art in Context, 2021), Weissensee Academy of Art Berlin (Diploma of Arts, 2017) and at the Tokyo University of the Arts (Bachelor of Arts, Intermedia Art, 2014), and has presented her projects in solo and group exhibitions. She is currently based in Berlin and her focus is on the role tragedies of political conflicts and wars play in damaged communities and the potential for them to create hostility and new problems.
Translation / 翻訳する
Artists present the moment after possessing inherited memory and how they internalise it subjectively. In this process, they try to implicitly overthrow the hierarchical perspective.
継承された記憶を所有したその後を提示します。私たちが継承された記憶をどのように主観的に内面化するのかという段階にアクセスし、ヒエラルキー的な視点を魔法のように覆そうとしているのです。
3
Sun Kim
Smooth Pursuit, 2021
Video installation and motor sculpture
04’47”
Sun Kim is a visual artist specialising in videos and installations. She is intrigued by fantasies like the human belief of a flat horizon even though they live on a round earth. Her research is about the boundaries of beliefs we've built up and the fallacies that paradoxically come from them, regardless of whether they're right or wrong. In this context, Kim’s art practice is currently exploring and seeking fictionalised moments hidden in non-fiction reality.
4
Minjae Kwak
Graft, 2023
Glass, woods, quartz, calcium carbonate and latex
Variable size
Minjae Kwak (b. Korea) focuses on the disparate moments created by the meeting of conflicting materials. In doing so, she metaphorically expresses the inevitable stresses and tensions that come with the process of survival and the attempts to overcome them. Recently, she has been experimenting with exploring these concepts through the material of glass.
5
Asato Kitamura / 北村 元統
Emotions Restored, 2022
Paper, digital print
Size varies
Asato Kitamura (b. Ishikawa, Japan) Influenced by his mother and grandmother, he has been doing creative activities such as oil painting and sculpture since he was little. In 2018, he travelled to Europe, including London, Paris, and Belgium, to work on his creations. He then moved to the United States in 2019. In 2022 he immersed himself in the philosophies of Freud, Nietzsche, Plutchik, and Bataille at Parsons earning an MFA in Fashion Design and Society. He studied his own experiences with the affirmation of trauma and the value of human imperfection.He held his first solo exhibition at the Mizuma & Kips Gallery in New York which was visited by more than 200 people.
6
Mingxiang Wang / 汪 明翔
Déambuler: Blue Dream, 2022
Video
7’21”
Mingxiang Wang is a London based interdisciplinary artist. His practices include movements, theatre, poetry, moving image and performance art. Frequently mixing media and genres, his works centres on simplicity and authenticity within, focusing on humanity, social discourses and queer identity. From 2012 to 2016, the four years training in Beijing Film Academy as a Foley/sound artist provided him insight into the film industry cannon as an indie filmmaker. Moving to the UK in 2018, he proceeded to study and research on drama and film theories at the University of Sussex. Currently, he is studying Performance Design and Practice in Central Saint Martin’s.
Song / 歌う
This is the last stage. Here, artists deal with more personal and subjective voices from our generation. With this flow, each work is tied into a larger narrative of personal stories about inherited memories and emancipation from the past.
At the same time, the dense layers of each artwork sing their own voices.
ここでは、各作品が受け継がれた記憶と過去からの解放をめぐる個人的な物語がより大きな物語に結びつけられ、同時に各作品の緻密なレイヤーがそれぞれの声で歌い出すのです。
7
Yusuke Komatsubara
A Parcel for Ghosts, 2023
Parcel, contents unknown
25 x 18 x 0.5 cm
Yusuke Komatsubara (b. Hiroshima, Japan) connects fragments of stories of natural and human activity that are hidden in objects and evokes unknown memories. He obtained a Bachelor of Sculpture from Hiroshima City University in 2018 and in 2020 he completed his Master's in Contemporary Art and Theory in the Faculty of Arts at Hiroshima City University.
8
bones tan jones
Portal, Spiral, Monolith, Medicine, 2022
Paper, digital print
Size varies
bones tan jones (b.93 Liverpool) is a queer heretic whose work traverses materials, disciplines and time lines. Raised in a church choir in the northwest of the UK, on the borderlands of mythical Wales and enchanted England, tan jones’s work has ne'er strayed far from the ecclesiastic rituals of worship, only in tan jones’s world, the church has been burnt, the yew trees thrive in the ashes, and god is trans. bones tan jones presents their living praxis ‘optimystic dystopia’ as a spiritual practice. An eternal storyteller, alternative realities are explored through alter egos, retellings of ancient Chinese and Celtic mythologies through creating; symphonies/operas/psalms/triptychs/sigils/stele/installations/interventions/inter-active workshops.
9
Marlies Pahlenberg
a pleasant stay, 2017
Video
12’07”
Marlies Pahlenberg (b. 1988, Berlin) is combining a documentary approach with staged elements to create surreal worlds of impossible realities where the known can be questioned and rethought. Where a collective memory exists, hidden sides of personalities become visible, and where she presents a way of seeing reality as a puzzle of memories and personal experiences. Pahlenberg has a Bachelor of Spanish Philology from Universidad Complutense Madrid (2009 - 2013), and a Diploma (2014 - 2022) in Fine Arts / Sculpture from Weissensee Art Academy Berlin (Prof. Albrecht Schäfer), where she is currently doing her Master Class Studies. Between 2019 - 2020 she received the DAAD scholarship to study at the New Media Department of Instituto Superior de Arte (Prof. Luis Gómez) in Havana, Cuba. She lives and works in Berlin.
10
Emily Karasawa Grabill / 唐沢絵美里
the warmest colour, 2023
Installation, sound
26’20’’
Emily Karasawa Grabill, who has been drifting between complex identities, creates mockumentary-like works that move back and forth between fiction and non-fiction, mainly in addition to their awareness of issues surrounding human institutional and social attributes such as race and gender. In their graduation project, they presented an installation with a structure in which the voices of people with inter-sectional minority attributes living in Japan can be heard through the viewer's active participation.
Soundscape Artist Bio
Leonid Zvolinsky
Air and Whisperscapes, 2023
Soundscape
Leonid Zvolinsky is a composer and sound artist currently based in Tokyo, Japan. He holds a degree in composition from the Moscow Conservatory and music theory from Gnessin state Musical College and sound engineering from the GITR Film & Television School in Moscow. Currently, he is pursuing a master's degree in the Department of Musical Creativity and Environment at Tokyo University of the Arts, where he studies under the supervision of Suguru Goto and conducts research.
His works encompass electro-acoustic compositions and performances, various orchestral pieces, as well as solo and ensemble performances. Leonid employs Max, Arduino and various algorithms and systems to explore the intersection of technology and sound. His research focuses on exploring the use of specific characteristics of hearing, such as sound illusions, in the creation of works of art.
Performer’s Bio
Sakura Obata
Born in Tokyo. Obata is currently studying oil painting at Musashino Art University. Her area of interest involves examining the outcomes of specific connections by modifying initial actions and repeating daily activities.
Naoyuki Sakai
Naoyuki Sakai is a dancer and filmmaker. He completed the Advanced Artistic Expression program at Tokyo University of the Arts. He is an advocate for the arts and works as a lecturer for "Dance Well," an organisation that focuses on people living with Parkinson's disease. Through this program, participants create and plan performances and films that utilise their own bodies as the axis of contemporary dance. Sakai’s works highlight the circular relationship between objects, nature, and others, with a particular focus on the human body. Sakai has performed in stage productions in various countries, including Japan, and countries in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. He also choreographs and performs for films, music videos, and musicals. Based in Kasukabe City, he promotes town development through dance and music, organises local art events, and holds workshops for a wide range of age groups.
Eureka Toyoda
After graduating from the Department of Film and Physical Expression at the Faculty of Contemporary Psychology at Rikkyo University, Toyoda is pursuing a graduate degree in the Department of Advanced Art Studies at Tokyo University of the Arts. Although she has a background in classical ballet, she views dance as a form of bodily expression that extends beyond trained movements to encompass everyday movements and objects.
As a choreographer and dancer, she is also part of a unit called "Oyashirazu," which was formed with media artist Yasutaka Sakamoto, known for his expertise in media art. Together, they work together and actively collaborate with other artists.
Instagram: @toyodasan_0116