Hiketa Doll Festival
2020 ⟫
Hiketa Doll Festival 2020
This was an impromptu performance and collaboration which took place in the remote country town of Hiketa in Shikoku Japan.
I had been involved in some art projects in the area and decided to visit and participate in their annual doll festival.
It was the beginning of March 2020, and suddenly the news of the pandemic had spread to Japan. To everyone’s dismay, the festival was cancelled.
The main festival street and decorated front windows of peoples` houses were left in waiting for an event that would never happen. The spectacle could only be enjoyed by those directly in the area. As I had already travelled to the town and begun preparations for a festival display, I worked with some local people to participate in an impromptu parade. I was dressed like a living doll and paraded around the town with the display I had made, including an assortment of representative items collected or borrowed from local people in the area.
At that time, there was no way that I could have imagined the tenacious perseverance of what would become the corona virus pandemic and the years that it would restrict people’s lives and individual autonomy.