Eating Tour For Freedom #2

Performance, single channel video, 2023

While the previous work, “Eating Tour For Freedom,” was performed at a place that was once seized, this time the performance was held at the Akasaka Press Center, a U.S. military base that has not yet been returned to Japan. Entering from the adjacent Tokyo Metropolitan Aoyama Park, the artists made sandwiches in front of the fence. Taking an image from the “Hinomaru bento,” which symbolizes the spirituality of the Japanese people during the World War II, he prepared pickled plums as an ingredient. He sandwiched it between two pieces of bread, an indispensable item in Western society. Then, by inserting the bread through a gap in the fence and eating it via the U.S. territory, the artist attempts a poetic intervention and reduction to a territory that is in Japan but inaccessible to Japanese people.

「赤坂プレスセンター」は東京23区内唯一の米軍基地であり、現在も日本に返還されていないアメリカ領土である。自然豊かな都立青山公園が隣接しており、木々のせせらぎや子供の遊び声、そしてヘリコプターが離着陸する音など、自然と人工、様々な音が入り乱れている。

作家は公園側から颯爽とやって来て、プレスセンターのフェンスの前でサンドイッチを作る。大戦時の日本の精神性を象徴する「日の丸弁当」からイメージを引用し、具材に梅干しを用意した。フェンスの隙間からサンドイッチを差し込み、アメリカ領土を経由して食べるパフォーマンスを行った。日本にありながら日本人が入ることができない領土への介入と還元を試みている。

Eating Tour For Freedom #2
Performance, Single channel video
EXHIBITION WORK IN PROGRESS 2023
Tokyo University of the Arts (Ibaraki, Japan), 2023

Eating Tour For Freedom #2
Performance, Single channel video
MELTING WALLS
MURMURCONTEMPORARY(Montreux, Switzerland)

-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), 2023