Hirakawa Youki
Program
EXHIBITION [Atsuta/Miya-no-Watashi Area]
TWENTY FIVE THOUSAND YEARS TO TRAP A SHADOW
- Venues:
- Miya no Watashi Park
- Year:
- 2021
Material / Technique: Neon tube
a film by
#T.H. 1929 #Unknown 1926-1927 #Unknown 1928-1930
- Venues:
- Niwa Historic Residence (formerly Isekkyu)
- Year:
- 2021
Material / Technique: Full HD
Plaster statue: Ozaki Haruka
Installed at the end of the pier at Miya no Watashi Park, the work—the title of an unfinished book from the 1930s on the history of cinematography—is formed in neon lights and exhibited such that it traces a horizon where the sea was once visible. Inside the Niwa Historic Residence (formerly Isekyu), a video work reproducing a scene from a now-missing prewar Japanese film was exhibited to match that place. The site of its disappearance and the time of the film are evoked with poetic expressions, stirring the viewer's imagination.
Artist Statement
This work traces the no longer visible horizon.
Formed here in neon lights, the phrase “TWENTY FIVE THOUSAND YEARS TO TRAP A SHADOW” is the title of an unfinished book written in the 1930s. Written by film historian Will Day (Wilfred Ernest Lytton Day: 1873-1936), it was an ambitious and comprehensive attempt to cover the history of images, from cave paintings to the birth of the film. But it was never completed. In other words, a new scene was created by bringing in a foreign object that has nothing to do with this place and presenting it as light.
The video projected on the TV monitor installed inside the Niwa Historic Residence reproduces a scene from a now-missing prewar Japanese movie. I reproduced the movie sets from existing documentary photographs and shot those. For the scenes appearing in the video, I selected content somehow related to this building, such as room interiors and eaves of a Japanese home, and created a new relationship there.
Artist
Hirakawa Youki
Video Installation
Born in Nagoya City, Aichi Prefecture in 1983, Hirakawa is a video artist currently based in Aichi Prefecture. He employs a media-archaeological perspective to present time spent in a place or with some material in an unsentimental, matter-of-fact way. More recently, he has used the methods of alchemy—combustion, distillation, and purification—with materials, extracting silver from old film and substituting surfaces with the film ash. His Lost Films series (2017–) has been highly acclaimed both in Japan and abroad, and in 2019, he was invited to screen his work at the “International Film Festival Rotterdam” (Netherlands), the “International Short Film Festival Oberhausen” (Germany), and the “Short Waves Festival” (Poland), and other events. Major exhibitions include those at the “Taipei Digital Arts Festival” (2017), the “19th DOMANI: The Art of Tomorrow” Exhibition (the National Art Center, Tokyo, 2016), the “Sapporo International Art Festival 2014”, and “Aichi Triennale 2013”.
