MAM Project 018: Yamashiro Chikako
17 Nov 2012 - 31 Mar 2013
© Yamashiro Chikako
SEAWEED WOMEN, 2008
Film (transferred to DVD) 7min.15sec.
Courtesy: Yumiko Chiba Associate
SEAWEED WOMEN, 2008
Film (transferred to DVD) 7min.15sec.
Courtesy: Yumiko Chiba Associate
MAM PROJECT 018: YAMASHIRO CHIKAKO
17 November 2012 - 31 March 2013
Yamashiro Chikako (b. 1976 in Okinawa) uses a variety of media including video and photography to produce works on the theme of her native Okinawa.
In her first video I Like Okinawa Sweet (from OKINAWA TOURIST) (2004), by devouring a famous brand of Okinawan ice cream in front of the US military base, the artist portrays an Okinawa that continues to be “licked,” while in her representative work Seaweed Woman (2008), by giving herself up to the flow of water and weed in the sea off Henoko, planned site for relocation of the US base, she hints at Okinawa's subjugation to the demands of Japan and the United States. Your Voice Came out through My Throat (2009), in which she endeavors to recreate through her own mouth the stories told by an elderly Okinawans who experienced the bloody battle of annihilation on Saipan, could be interpreted as symbolizing the difficulty of passing down history now, over sixty years after the war, but it also overlaps with Okinawa's problem of fading wartime memories.
Thus most of Yamashiro's practice utilizes her own body, serving to symbolize the situation of Okinawa. Still, her works cannot be neatly categorized as simplistic arguments of good and evil; the lyrical quality of her expression allows them to be interpreted in various ways, and in them one finds universal themes such as femininity and physicality, the connection between life and death, memory and storytelling. More recently Yamashiro has begun to shift from performing in her own works to featuring third party subjects, and in this exhibition plans to unveil her latest work on video, an intersection of reality and fiction with a woman who runs a meat shop at a black-market on the US base.
17 November 2012 - 31 March 2013
Yamashiro Chikako (b. 1976 in Okinawa) uses a variety of media including video and photography to produce works on the theme of her native Okinawa.
In her first video I Like Okinawa Sweet (from OKINAWA TOURIST) (2004), by devouring a famous brand of Okinawan ice cream in front of the US military base, the artist portrays an Okinawa that continues to be “licked,” while in her representative work Seaweed Woman (2008), by giving herself up to the flow of water and weed in the sea off Henoko, planned site for relocation of the US base, she hints at Okinawa's subjugation to the demands of Japan and the United States. Your Voice Came out through My Throat (2009), in which she endeavors to recreate through her own mouth the stories told by an elderly Okinawans who experienced the bloody battle of annihilation on Saipan, could be interpreted as symbolizing the difficulty of passing down history now, over sixty years after the war, but it also overlaps with Okinawa's problem of fading wartime memories.
Thus most of Yamashiro's practice utilizes her own body, serving to symbolize the situation of Okinawa. Still, her works cannot be neatly categorized as simplistic arguments of good and evil; the lyrical quality of her expression allows them to be interpreted in various ways, and in them one finds universal themes such as femininity and physicality, the connection between life and death, memory and storytelling. More recently Yamashiro has begun to shift from performing in her own works to featuring third party subjects, and in this exhibition plans to unveil her latest work on video, an intersection of reality and fiction with a woman who runs a meat shop at a black-market on the US base.