COVID-19 May 2020
2020 - Film & Video (Film & Video)
5:49 minutes
Hikaru Fujii
COVID-19 May 2020 by Hikaru Fujii was filmed during the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic. For this work Fujii filmed the group exhibition Things Entangling, the final phase of a collaboration between KADIST and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo. At the time that the first Covid-19 lockdowns were instated in Japan, the exhibition was fully installed, but it was not accessible to the public for an indeterminate duration. As such, Fujii’s video illustrates an inaccessible space due to a public health catastrophe: a paradoxical and dizzying gesture on the part of an artist who has consistently filmed other inaccessible places. Much of Fujii’s work engages with the Fukushima-Daiichi Power Station, where a major nuclear accident occured in 2011, and everyday life was more or less interrupted for an undetermined period of time. Similarly, this work is a haunting documentation of cultural production in stasis. Fujii unintentionally became the exhibition’s first visitor, capturing it in all its unreality: that of an exhibition affected, on pause, on hold, and in the dark. The video depicts a glimpse into the reverberations of confinement, social distancing, quarantines, city lockdowns, and closed borders. The conceits of the artworks in the exhibition, which addressed global political, economic, social, and environmental crises, were compounded by the solitude of the museum. The artworks, which predicted and cautions against future catastrophes, violence, and human extinction, were magnified in the context of the pandemic.
Hikaru Fujii utilizes film to bridge art and social activism. To engage with specific historical moments and social issues related to systems of dominance, he creates various forms of dialogue in order to document tensions and seek out discourse and critique. Through films and installations, he undertakes extensive research and fieldwork to investigate existing systems and structures, and to probe into hegemonic power embedded in social relations and discourses. Rather than presenting his research matter-of-fact, his work attempts to reinterpret events from contemporary issues and perspectives, exploring the potentiality for political resistance.
Colors:
Related works sharing similar palette
© » ARTS EQUATOR
Weekly Southeast Asia Radar: The artist who wants the Rafflesia; Thai colourful culture | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia ArtsEquator Radar John Clewley October 1, 2020 ArtsEquator’s Southeast Asia Radar features articles and posts about arts and culture in Southeast Asia, drawn from local and regional websites and publications – aggregated content from outside sources, so we are exposed to a multitude of voices in the region...
© » ARTS EQUATOR
Weekly Picks: Indonesia (17 - 23 December 2018) | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Weekly To Do December 17, 2018 Top Picks of Indonesia art events in Bali and Solofrom 17-23 December 2018 The year is coming to a close but there are still a few exciting art events that might brighten your holiday season...
© » KADIST
Danielle Dean
2012No Lye by Danielle Dean documents a group of five women, including Dean herself, confined to a small, cramped bathroom, communicating only by using slogans culled from beauty advertisements (“beauty is skin deep”, “naturalise, it’s in our nature to be strong and balanced”) and quotes from political speeches (“we must protect our borders”, “we are fighting for our way of life and our ability to fight for freedom”)...
© » KADIST
Olga Grotova
2022Our Grandmothers’ Gardens by Olga Grotova is based on the history of Soviet allotment gardens, which were small plots of land distributed amongst the families of factory workers to compensate for poor food supply in a country that was over-producing weapons...
© » KADIST
Bontaro Dokuyama
2015In Over There, Bontaro Dokuyama conducted a series of workshops with various people who had been forced to relocate in temporary housing after the Fukushima accident...
© » ROYAL ACADEMY
My sketchbook: Emyr's life drawings and abstract lines | Blog | Royal Academy of Arts Emyr’s sketchbook My sketchbook: Emyr’s life drawings and abstract lines Read more Become a Friend My sketchbook: Emyr’s life drawings and abstract lines Published 21 August 2023 Take a look inside the sketchbook of artist Emyr Williams and learn how drawing with your opposite hand can improve your technique...
© » KADIST
Tracey Rose
2001“Maqe II” is at first glance a romantic image of three diaphanous angels hovering in the luminous sky over a South African township...
© » KADIST
Kota Ezawa
2014Paint and Unpaint is an animation by Kota Ezawa based on a scene from a popular 1951 film by Hans Namuth featuring Jackson Pollock...
© » DAZED DIGITAL
Visit a new exhibition shedding light on man of mystery, Martin Margiela | Dazed â¬…ï¸ Left Arrow *ï¸âƒ£ Asterisk â Star Option Sliders âœ‰ï¸ Mail Exit Fashion Round-up …plus all the other fashion news you missed this week, from a new Balenciaga video game to Robyn Lynch’s London exhibition, and Entire Studios’ Selfridges pop-up 15 December 2023 Text Dominic Cadogan Margiela: In the Void 12 Martin Margiela is as much of an enigma today as he was while at the helm of the brand – which he stepped away from in 2009...