Eating Tour For Freedom #2

Eating Tour For Freedom #2
2023
Performance, single channel video, 04’16”

Eating Tour For Freedom #2 – installation view: the video showing a pickled plum being placed on white bread, screened in a dark exhibition space

The Akasaka Press Center, the only U.S. military facility within Tokyo’s 23 wards, remains American territory that has not been returned to Japan. This unique space is adjacent to the lush Aoyama Park, where the rustling of trees and children’s playful voices intermingle with the sounds of U.S. military aircraft taking off and landing as they move between other bases. In this work, Yamaguchi emerges from the park side with a brisk stride and proceeds to make a sandwich in front of the Press Center’s fence. For the sandwich filling, he uses umeboshi (pickled plum), drawing inspiration from the “hinomaru bento” (a lunch box resembling the Japanese flag), which symbolizes Japan’s wartime mentality. He then pushes the sandwich through a gap in the fence and eats it after it has passed through American territory. Through this symbolic act, Yamaguchi attempts to intervene in American territory that exists within Japan yet is inaccessible to Japanese citizens, and to bring it back to his body on the Japanese side.

Eating Tour For Freedom #2 – the artist eating a sandwich beside the black fence of the Akasaka Press Center
Eating Tour For Freedom #2 – close-up of hands making a sandwich with mayonnaise and pickled plums on a park bench
Eating Tour For Freedom #2 – a US military helicopter above the Tokyo skyline seen through the bars of the base fence
Eating Tour For Freedom #2 – the artist sitting on a bench in Aoyama Park preparing the sandwich
Eating Tour For Freedom #2 – the artist walking along the road beside the tall black fence of the US military facility
Eating Tour For Freedom #2 – the long black fence of the Akasaka Press Center beside the park lawn, a person lying on a bench in the distance
Eating Tour For Freedom #2 – installation view: the video projected on a free-standing screen in a concrete space

Eating Tour For Freedom #2
Performance, single channel video
Screening ‘MELTING WALLS’
MURMURCONTEMPORARY (Montreux, Switzerland), 2024

-Appearance-

Apr 6 – May 4, 2024
MELTING WALLS
MURMURCONTEMPORARY, Montreux, Switzerland

Oct 20 – Oct 29, 2023
Itsumono Sono aida
Shinyurakucho#Sonoaida, Tokyo, Japan

Jan 3 – Jan 7, 2023
EXHIBITION WORK IN PROGRESS 2023
Tokyo University of the Arts, Ibaraki, Japan