Wandering Invisible Archipelago:
Practicing Emotion, Care, Love
(O)Kamemochi Collective has been holding regular meet-ups since August 2023. The aim of those meetings is to share interests, exciting news and ongoing projects in the supportive and warm atmosphere of the collective. So far we have talked about interdisciplinary research, intercultural relations, institutional decolonisation, ways to elevate marginalised voices, modern literature, and female perspectives that are hidden in the grand historical narrative.
Our hope is that those meetings will help us to share our values and develop our own interests and activities in a community of like-minded people.
Everybody that shares (O)Kamemochi’s dedication for non-hierarchical, caring environment can join us in the meet-ups. Usually the session is announced through (O)Kamemochi’s instagram (found here).
As (O)Kamemochi in itself an experiment of building an artistic and research group based on care, an important part of the collective’s activities is archival of the meetings that follow the progression of our ideas and our bond.
Meet Up 1
7/9/2023 (Tues)
Location: Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MoT)
Schedule & Flow
- 13:00 Meet at Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MoT)
- 13:15 Viewing of the exhibition “How I feel is not your problem, period.”
- 15:00 Discussion Session
- 17:00 Finish
Discussion
Re-contextualizing emotion: Can we build our collective centred on care, empathy, intimacy(?) and love, usually underestimated in the contemporary public life.
What are the practical ways to embody those values in the working process?
Key words: a place to be soft, 守られている, too much emotion, 共感はいくつのタイプがあるのかな
Meet Up 2
19/9/2023 (Tues)
Location: Taki Plaza 4F in Tokyo University of the Arts Ueno campus
Schedule & Flow
18:00 Share our activities and projects
- 19:30 Talk about how the collective can contribute to our lives
- 20:00 Workshop a possible shared project for the collective. Learn about Nüshu - a Chinese script designed and use only by ethnic Yao women in Jiangyong County in Hunan province
Discussion
What does a ‘collective’ mean?
How can we embody our values?
We found a shared interest in language and female expression. One of the new members, Vivi, pointed out Nüshu - an only female Chinese script, that we found extremely inspiring. We decided to deepen our research on Nüshu on the following meetings.
Key words: Kowloon Walled City, Nüshu, Arrival, Hijikata, interpreting the reality, sex education, fluctuation
Meet Up 3
17/10/2023 (Tues)
Location: Taki Plaza 4F in Tokyo University of the Arts Ueno campus/ A patch of grass outside the student affairs office
Schedule & Flow
- 11:00 Reading Octavia E. Butler’s “Bloodchild” together
- 12:00 A meeting for the collective’s general project during lunch
- 13:00 Getting to know Nüshu and an improvised workshop around it’s characters
Discussion
Reading collectively the short story “Bloodchild” and realising the importance of the language and the difficulty of using English to read and express ourself even thought we all come from different countries and linguistic traditions.
Discussing what our future project could be and how do each of us wants to contribute to it.
One of the members, Jini, brought a book on the Chinese female notation system Nüshu and we spent time trying to translate the recorded voices of women and discuss the necessity of language and writing as expressing tools.
We did a workshop trying to create our own character, needed to express emotions we cannot find words for.
Key quotes:
“I realised that I did not consider that we all have very different native tongues.”
“The flower has been planted by the man but is not taken care of by the man“
“Resistance in a really intimate way. “
Vivi points out that the writings were based on chinese characters so it’s based on what they know. What they dont know, they invent.
Key words: Mother tongue, language, care, memory, writing, history
Meet Up 4
5/11/2023 (Sat)
Location: Rainbow Plaza
Schedule & Flow
Meet
Some later meet
Share
God punishes us for being too candid about our dislike for a very man-man lecturer.
Baseballers in the background are suspiciously dry
Escape
Discussion
Bud - Rose - Thorns
But finding excitement about learning.
a study group about Theatre de soleil
Has a lot to do but it is coming in waves.
Kind of stressed about conference and ending up a wallflower.
Last weekend cycled to Enoshima - 140km overall.
Elia Suleiman - Divine Intervention
-> A screening organised by Vivi
to be continued...