Eating Tour For Freedom #1

Eating Tour For Freedom #1
2023
Performance, single channel video, 06’24”

This video work was created during Yamaguchi’s residency at Shinyurakucho#Sonoaida, awarded as part of the A-TOM ART AWARD 2022 Sonoaida Prize. Yamaguchi performed an act of infiltration into buildings that were once requisitioned and off-limits to Japanese citizens (including the Dai-ichi Life Building, Tokyo Kaikan, and Meiji Yasuda Life Building Annex, which served as GHQ headquarters), while eating American food. The food items chosen were those familiar to Yamaguchi from his time studying in the United States. The chewing sounds, captured by a voice recorder concealed on his chest, reverberate loudly throughout the video, evoking images of exploitation. However, simultaneously, Yamaguchi physically embodies the changing circumstances – spaces once inaccessible to Japanese people can now be freely entered, with the liberty to eat there, albeit impolitely.

Eating Tour For Freedom #1 – installation view: the single channel video shown on a monitor placed on the floor of the exhibition space
Eating Tour For Freedom #1 – installation view: the video showing a hand holding American fast food, screened on a monitor in a building entrance

Eating Tour For Freedom #1
Performance, single channel video, installation
ON LIMITS / Shinyurakucho#Sonoaida, Tokyo, Japan

Eating Tour For Freedom #1 – the artist walking past a security guard at the entrance of a former GHQ building in Tokyo
Eating Tour For Freedom #1 – video still: a security guard beside a heightened-alert sign inside the building
Eating Tour For Freedom #1 – video still: the artist crouching in a hotel lobby to prepare food while a guard stands nearby
Eating Tour For Freedom #1 – video still: a hand holding a hot sandwich, with the subtitle So you won’t let me in after this?
Eating Tour For Freedom #1 – archival black and white photograph of the grand banquet hall used by GHQ, with the subtitle And if it’s GHQ
Eating Tour For Freedom #1 – archival black and white photograph of an office desk in a requisitioned building, with the subtitle That maybe not open to the public right now

-Appearance-

Feb 24 – Feb 26, 2023
ON LIMITS
Shinyurakucho#Sonoaida, Tokyo, Japan

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