Crossing boundaries and becoming islands
DAI Zhoujie

　Due to major renovation work, the facilities of Aomori Contemporary Art Centre (ACAC) were closed throughout 2025. This included the Exhibition Hall, where exhibitions and other events are normally held. As a result, the 2025 Artist in Residence (AIR) programme held its Results Presentation at the Aomori Citizens’ Art Gallery inside the JR Aomori Station East Exit Building. This marked the first time since ACAC’s opening that they had taken an AIR exhibition ‘on the road’, so to speak. True to the exhibition’s title, the presentations by the 5 participating artists conjured up images of a giant ‘camp’ set up in front of Aomori Station.

　In late September, prior to the Results Exhibition, the multidisciplinary project (SAIGAI Utopia) was held in two parts: ACAC as a Base Camp was held over 2 days at ACAC, while Film Festival as a Tent was held at the newly opened Aomori City Gymnasium in downtown Aomori City. I was one of the participants. The former (which was only possible because ACAC had closed for its renovation work) was based on the premise: What if ACAC was struck by a disaster? The participants, which included ACAC staff, guests, and Aomori Public University students, camped for a night inside ACAC, allowing us all to experience what an evacuation drill is like.

　The previous year, 2024, saw the Noto Earthquake in Ishikawa Prefecture, while the following year, 2026, would mark 15 years since the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. As if straddling the borderline between the experiences and memories of these two major disasters, an earthquake struck off the eastern coast of Aomori Prefecture on December 8, registering as high as an Upper 6 (the second-highest level) on the JMA Seismic Intensity Scale in Hachinohe City, where I live. Born on the Chinese mainland, I had never experienced such a strong earthquake before, and this close encounter brought on intense feelings of fear and uncertainty. I feel as though this context imbues the review I am writing here with special meaning.

As part of ACAC as a Base Camp, I helped line up cardboard beds and sleeping bags inside ACAC’s spacious gallery, and spent the night there with the other participants. This experience was my first (and hopefully last) opportunity to know what an emergency evacuation feels like. Living at the limits of civilisation, where even going to the outdoor toilet alone was restricted due to concerns about marauding bears, the participants overcame differences in age, nationality, and occupation to form a mysteriously close-knit community. As this reality dawned on me, I felt a tangible identification with Rebecca SOLNIT’s concept of the ‘disaster utopia’[1].

　Another participant in ACAC as a Base Camp was MAETANI Kai, who was also one of the artists selected for the open-call AIR being held in conjunction with the (SAIGAI Utopia) project. The day after the campout, the participants all walked from ACAC to the Aomori City Gymnasium in the city centre. For the entire journey, Maetani, like some sort of ascetic, shouldered a gigantic backpack crammed with an absurd amount of gear, including camera equipment for his photographic work, along with all of his camping supplies.

　I noticed that all 5 artists invited to this AIR had something in common: they all had a deep connection to ‘islands’. Maetani is from Ehime Prefecture on Shikoku, the smallest of the 4 main islands of the island nation of Japan. For him, the tranquil Seto Inland Sea is an indelibly familiar landscape. TANJI Rie, meanwhile, is from Fukushima Prefecture on the main island of Honshu, but moved to Okinawa when she entered graduate school. Since then, she has continued to live in this distinct ‘island’[2] society far from the Japanese mainland. Adi Sundoro is from Indonesia, the largest island nation in Southeast Asia. During his stay in Japan, he created works using everyday materials while drawing inspiration from his curiosity about the cultural and social differences between the two island nations. Atittayaporn SAENPO comes out of the Isan region of northeast Thailand. Marginalised from mainstream Thai culture, and sharing closer linguistic and ethnic ties with Laos, Isan has developed into a kind of ‘landlocked island’, with a distinct culture all its own. Samantha CLARK is based in the Orkney Islands of Scotland, in the northern United Kingdom. There, she creates art that responds to the natural elements surrounding the islands, such as wind and water.

　For mainland nations, the ocean is often understood as a natural obstacle; but for island nations, the ocean is the road itself. That these 5 artists all travelled from their respective ‘islands’ to encounter each other here in Aomori, at the very northern tip of the main island of Honshu – this was perhaps more inevitability than accident.

　While the artists were conducting their residencies, the human disaster of war continued to rage in every corner of the world throughout 2025 – the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II – from faraway horrors in Palestine and Ukraine, to strained relations closer to home between Japan and China over the Taiwan issue. The world is becoming more and more divided, with each side resembling its own remote island. In their midst, refugees who have lost their homes (nation/family) find themselves moving from camp to camp, country after country, in search of safe places to live. Picturing all these scenes together makes me wonder if the Earth itself is becoming one enormous camp. Given these layers upon layers of historical context, the Results Presentation of this year’s open-call AIR, titled CAMP, was in many ways a special exhibition.

　Maetani’s work was based on a 12-day trek that he took around the Tsugaru Peninsula at the end of September, following the conclusion of the (SAIGAI Utopia) project. His massive installation consisted of a collection of photographs taken along the way, capturing his encounters with landscapes and people, as well as his own figure standing in the middle of these scenes. The piece was arranged on a structure made of fallen branches as if following the passage of time, and evoking the dilapidated huts scattered along the coast of Mutsu Bay. In one corner of the installation was a video recording of Maetani pitching a tent somewhere along his trek, the wedding ring on his finger strikingly highlighted. I believe that this arrangement was intentional. Upon learning of his selection to the ACAC open-call residency, Maetani quit his company job and travelled to Aomori alone, but he said that his wife encouraged him in this decision. It was as if, somewhere in that gigantic backpack of his, Maetani was also carrying his beloved ‘home’ around with him, and that subtle warmth comes through in his piece.

　I was also able to witness the performance Maetani gave on the final day of the exhibition. The performance’s title, Walk, Sleep, seems to encompass the dual concepts of ‘movement/borders’ and ‘nation/family’. The former ‘U-STYLE’ building, which served as the venue, brought the idea of camping to mind in a different way. As the sun sank, Maetani took off all his clothes and projected onto his body the collection of photographs from his trek around the Tsugaru Peninsula. His body was turned into a canvas, or a screen. Memories of ACAC as a Base Camp, where I had first met Maetani, flooded into my mind, superimposing themselves onto the hushed and darkened venue. I was brought back to that moment when the lights in the room where the Base Camp participants had gathered were suddenly turned off, simulating a power outage after an imaginary earthquake.

　Tanji conducted research centred around locations in the Kamitousan region of Aomori Prefecture, such as Misawa City and Rokkasho Village. Her works incorporated her memories of the people she met there, and used everyday goods that she collected from second-hand shops. These sets, which at first glance seemed to depict scenes that one might find in any residential area of any city, were visualised in a way that was detached from any actual place or person. Misawa City, where the American military base plays a major role in citizens’ daily lives, is often described as a city that depends on its coexistence with said base. It is similar in this respect to Okinawa, where Tanji lives. Rokkasho Village, meanwhile, boasts a large number of nuclear fuel recycling facilities, and has long formed the core of the ‘Mutsu-Ogawara Development Project’[3], a massive state-led initiative. Militaries; bases; governments; state power – Tanji’s meticulous research delved deep into the identities of places where such complex dynamics intersect. Her works manifested as homes that people might actually have been living in, although they could not be identified as belonging to any specific person. It seemed as though these works were quietly approaching the boundary between ‘Other’ and ‘Self’, a question long pondered by the people of both Kamitousan and Okinawa.

　Adi travelled from Indonesia, the largest island nation in Southeast Asia, to the East Asian island nation of Japan. His work explored the two nations’ respective attitudes toward privacy and the boundary between personal information and public space. His work focused on a familiar, everyday object – paper used to wrap fried food sold in convenience stores – only this time applied to the specialised field of printmaking. Out of this repetitive and apparently simple construct, the overwhelming deluge of information generated by mass production and consumption was vividly propelled to the forefront, along with the blurring of the boundary between ‘private’ and ‘public’ in a modern society caught up in this deluge. Adi spoke about Japan’s emphasis on the protection of personal information and about the situation in Indonesia, which stands in stark contrast. His work stood as a testament to the changing definition of privacy in a modern world rapidly advancing toward a surveillance society. Later, we munched on fried foods as we strolled around, and act which – albeit an everyday sight in both Japan and Indonesia, and characteristic of the kind of ‘on the go’ lifestyle we find in our ever-accelerating society – suddenly brought to my mind the physical sensations of camping.

　Saenpo’s work showed her deep attachment to her homeland, the Isan region of northeast Thailand. Sandwiched between central Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia, Isan has existed as a largely agricultural area since ancient times. Despite comprising roughly one-third of the national population, it remains one of the country’s poorest regions. As its historical path has differed from that of the Bangkok-centred mainstream Thai culture, Isan has long been subject to marginalisation and discrimination. Saenpo’s work eloquently spoke to the multilayered history of this land, and to its unique and deeply-rooted identity. When she discovered common ground in the form of the mushiokuri[4] harvest ritual of the Tsugaru Peninsula, an unexpected connection emerged between the ‘northeast regions’ of both countries. And her video piece, which drew on the memories of Thai migrant labourers in Japan, gave form to the profound relationship between the themes of camping and immigration.

　Confluence, the title of Clark’s work, reflects her consistent fascination with the motif of ‘water’. Paper resembling an enormous picture scroll was covered with hundreds of circles; eventually, the circles took on the appearance of bubbles foaming across the surface of a river or an ocean. Confluence was a participatory artwork, and as each visitor participated in the act of drawing these circles, their myriad thoughts and feelings intertwined, and the countless circles/bubbles joined together to follow a single flow. Each time I encountered Clark’s work, I was reminded of a phrase attributed to Laozi, the famous philosopher from the Spring and Autumn period of ancient China: ‘The highest virtue is like water’[5]. Water seeks its own level without asserting itself, conforming to the vessel that contains it. On the other hand, the contemplative act of drawing circle after circle implied the potential for small actions to eventually become a great force, which also brought to mind the proverb: ‘Patience is a virtue’.

　On the day after the conclusion of the exhibition, Clark conducted a performance at ACAC entitled returning the waters. At the exhibition venue, Clark displayed water which had been collected from all around the world; for her performance, she poured this water into a small pool outside ACAC, creating a new cycle. The water, imbued with various emotions, tumbled into the pool, spread out in ripples, and finally flowed away into the distance. As I stood by watching this scene together with the staff and the other participants, I found myself pondering the symbiotic relationship between humans and water, and between islands and oceans, in a new light.

　As the performance ended, the scaffolding was in the process of being removed from the Exhibition Hall which towered over the far side of the pool. As the renovation work progressed, the new ACAC was finally beginning to take shape.

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[1] A concept introduced by the American author Rebecca Solnit in her 2009 book A Paradise Built in Hell. It refers to a phenomenon that has often been observed in the wake of disasters, namely the formation of a temporary community through the altruistic actions of the disaster victims. The programme title (SAIGAI Utopia) mentioned earlier in this review was derived from this concept (which was adopted as the title of the book’s Japanese translation), with the Japanese word saigai (‘disaster’) here substituted for the English.

[2] In Okinawan society, shima (‘island’) is a multilayered word which goes beyond the basic meaning to encompass the concepts of ‘region’, ‘settlement, ‘hometown’, and ‘community’. In the Okinawan shimakutuba (lit. ‘island speech’) dialect, it is used to refer to ‘native (current or former) residents’, ‘villages’, etc.

[3] A development project which began in the late 1960s. It was conceived with the goal of establishing a large-scale coastal industrial zone in the vicinity of Rokkasho Village in the Kamikita District of Aomori Prefecture, centred around petrochemical complexes and ironworks. Despite being billed as ‘the world’s largest development project’, these complexes were never constructed, and several nuclear energy-related facilities were subsequently built there instead.

[4] In the Tsugaru region, a traditional event known as mushiokuri (lit. ‘seeing off the insects’) is held during sanaburi, a local term for the communal resting period following the conclusion of rice-planting work in farming areas. Although its primary purpose is to drive away pests that infest and damage crops, mushiokuri also serves as a prayer for the safety of the harvest and the village, and more generally as a means of driving misfortune away from the community.

[5] This phrase is found in Laozi’s best-known work, the Tao Te Ching. It expresses the importance of possessing flexibility, humility, and broad-mindedness by comparing these virtues to the qualities of water.

[Translation: Ethan SAMES]
Photo by IWANE Ai