Laying Down Roots in a Dizzying World
TAKAHASHI Mai

2024 began in Japan with a massive earthquake off the coast of the Noto Peninsula of Ishikawa Prefecture. Meanwhile, other parts of the world remained embroiled in conflict, while the larger international situation continued to change. This year’s program, “SPINNING SCAPES,” presents the four invited artists’ explorations of the potential of expression in such a dizzying world. The word “SPINNING” abounds with dynamic energy, and one can observe this sense of constant movement, as well as responses to that movement, in the artists’ works.

It is the traces of movement – in this case, movement in the form of traveling – that serve as the “material” for Maggie CHU’s installation Will you make home in this nest that I made? Inspired by the behavior of migratory birds, which use of whatever objects are available around them to build their temporary “nests/homes,” Chu constructed her installation using pamphlets, cloth, and other materials she collected during her journey to and residence at Aomori Contemporary Art Centre (ACAC). Author and scholar James CLIFFORD understands “travel” as “constitutive of cultural meanings rather than as their simple transfer or expansion,”1 implying that one’s “roots” in a place can be created out of the “routes” they take to that place. Chu has laid down the foundations (roots) of her new “home” with this artwork, which mixes together not only the Chinese and Japanese languages but also the various cultures of all the places she visited on her journey.

In AMOR AOMORI, the routes that Béatrice DIDIER walked in pairs with four local residents are depicted on the floor of the exhibition space using crushed leaf fragments and other materials. Also displayed are the impressions which Didier and the four participants wrote on fallen leaves and shared with each other after their walks together, providing both physical and emotional traces of their journeys. The lines on the floor recall those created by Richard LONG as he walked through a grassy field to produce his piece A Line Made by Walking (1967); yet the forms that Didier’s lines (routes) ultimately took were entrusted entirely to her walking partners. Additionally, the breeze from visitors walking close to the bits of leaves on the floor easily throws these lines into disorder, as if further expressing her lack of control. But even in this, Didier shows the possibilities of new paths that can be created by accepting and collaborating with others.

YAHATA Aki took her own roots as her starting point, producing the installation Currents of Memory based on research she conducted in Oma Town in Aomori Prefecture, and in her hometown of Kikonai Town, which lies on the other side of the Tsugaru Straights in Hokkaido. Yahata’s piece includes a book of her mother’s stories about life in Hokkaido. Some of these stories relate to the sinking of a ferry that used to sail between Aomori City and Hakodate City; but the stories deviate slightly from the historical facts. A photograph of Yahata’s grandfather’s house, long since demolished, further foregrounds the transience of memory. Yet the Tsugaru Straights are the same waters they were at the time of the sinking, and the same waters that Yahata’s mother must have gazed out on from the window her father had built in the old house. Two videos are projected on a wall of the exhibition space: one showing Yahata floating in the sea off Kikonai Town, the other showing her lying on the shore of Oma Town. With these videos, Yahata seems to be reflecting on the distant memories contained in those waters, as if her back was gazing into the past. A text is also projected in the space between these two videos, but it is out of focus; it can only be viewed by having someone sit in the stool placed in the center of the installation. Doing so brings the text into focus on the person’s back, but it also means that this person is the only one who cannot read what it says. It is a reminder that the past does not belong to one person alone: it is made up of the intertwined memories of many people. During an earlier workshop with residents of both towns, Yahata created a song with lyrics derived from the participants’ thoughts about the sea. The voices of the singers are somewhat melancholy as they recall the many lives that the sea has claimed; but as they sing, with a serene yet cheerful melody, “Over your shoulders, I watch tomorrow come,” one can hear the hearts of those who have overcome their pasts, whatever they may have been, and have found ways to move forward.

In contrast to the previous three works, which trace their creators’ own paths across the land, ASANO Yuriko’s The Silent Trade Between Living Things leaps across space and time. Asano’s dynamic work depicts various plants that have sprouted from seeds contained inside bird pellets and droppings, painted on washi paper that spans the entire 6-meter height from the floor to the ceiling of ACAC’s exhibition space. The “nourishment” for these images was provided by the interactions Asano had with locals who observe wild and migratory birds in the area, as well as her own encounters with the birds and plants that can be found among Aomori’s rich natural surroundings. Asano’s sketches are exhibited as traces of these interactions and encounters. While this work was born out of such accumulations of the past, it cannot trace the route along which were carried the seeds that formed the roots of its creation. These plants have laid down their roots in unexpected places, even though the roots themselves can no longer be seen; looking at them, one sees a strength capable of surviving any situation.

Rather than attempting to resist a drastically changing world, the four artists in this year’s program created four distinctive new landscapes which accept the environments and people around them. In this way, we can lay down flexible roots and forge new paths in this dizzying world.

[Translator: Ethan SAMES]
Photo by KONO Yurika