Koganecho Bazaar 2020
Video Installation
Actions, Alone in the City, Part One, Heavy Hurdles, performance/video, 41min
I created this video in 2020 and exhibited it in the Koganecho Bazaar of the same year. It was inspired by the laborious task of having to move all of my belongings from my studio at the time to a new apartment.
As the apartment was close by, the whole moving process was completed by walking and transporting everything on the street. It was also during the early, uncertain phase of the isolating Corona virus pandemic, with a state of emergency being called across many cities in Japan. I felt that my actions, moving all manner of unique and strange items, accumulated through my artistic practice become a kind of street art performance in itself that I tried to capture by video. This particular work portrays a jumble of painted wooden timber which I had used in a participatory installation featuring hurdles. The hurdles were a reference to my youth training in Australia as a hurdler, as well as thinking in relation to the upcoming summer Olympic games which were cancelled all of a sudden in 2020.
In this case, rather than clearing over them, the hurdles needed to be pushed through the street, along with an array of other boxes and items. The repetitive struggle one windy morning continues for the whole duration of the video, moving across the varying
Koganecho, streetscape. Through my improvised action I express my own feelings of helplessness and struggle as a woman artist in Japan as well as a sense of despair and loneliness in face of the sudden isolating pandemic conditions. The video could also be interpreted in many ways, such as a reminder of the hardship of women in the area in the past, and the displacement of women and travel in Yokohama's history as well as folklore.
Actions Alone in the City, Part Two, performance/video, various lengths
I created this “Actions” video series in 2020 and exhibited it in the Koganecho Bazaar of the same year in conjunction with the Yokohama Triennale. The videos were inspired by the laborious task of having to move all of my belongings from my Koganecho studio to a new apartment.
As the apartment was close by, the whole moving process was completed by walking and transporting everything on the street. It was also during the early, uncertain phase of the isolating Corona virus pandemic, with a state of emergency being called across many cities in Japan. I felt that my actions, moving all manner of unique and strange items, accumulated through my artistic practice, as well as completing daily errands, became a kind of street art performance that I tried to convey through these videos. Each video is of varying length and focuses on a repetitive “action” to create moving images that the viewer can encounter in their own conceived time.
They also beckon the viewer to reexamine changing attitudes towards shared facilities and spaces and what it means to be dependent on their use under pandemic conditions.
Bye Bye Baby Sayonara Bye Bye, performance/video, installation
This video performance was based on the experience of having lived for several years in the Koganecho area in Yokohama, and my recent move to another apartment in the greater neighbourhood. I filmed the performance in my home, and it is a combined reinterpretation of two popular songs from the 1950s and 1960s - one from a musical featuring Marilyn Munroe and the other by enka (a Japanese dramatic ballad) singer Harumi Miako. Both songs are about saying goodbye, and reflect upon my own experience of moving, as well as historical changes in the city. They also are an interpretive expression of women entertainers in time, and stem from my own memories of being exposed to the original media.
Red Carpet in Koganecho, video compilation
This is a compilation of several time lapse videos and other footage from some "red carpet" events, I instigated in the Koganecho area. The mere act of rolling carpet on an ordinary city street immediately creates an impromptu and surreal participatory performance space.
The location was on the street outside of my then dwelling, a tiny narrow, two story space, of about two metres wide within a tenement of other such spaces.
The carpet is some 60m long. The bold gesture commands attention and also evoked people to interact or reassess the location and their own physical presence in relation.
(Special thanks to everyone who participated including the Hyenas cosplay group pictured)
