2021
Signboard, Single video projection (3min 25sec.)
Itoshima arts farm
Supported by Natsuko Tezuka
This work was exhibited at the “Itoshima arts farm” art festival held in Itoshima City, Fukuoka Prefecture. The work was created in response to questions about the Japanese government’s recent efforts to distort and glorify the history of modernization that served as a catalyst for invading other countries, without mentioning the forced removal of people from Korea, Taiwan, and other countries from the “Industrial Revolutionary Heritage of Meiji Japan. In this work, he created a fictitious organization called the “Association for the Registration of the Cultural Properties of nijyomatsusue as a World Heritage Site,” and forced ordinary objects found in any countryside near the exhibition site to fit the “standard of value” recommended by UNESCO by using signboards. An information center was also set up, which used the same talking points (slogans and images) frequently used by organizations seeking registration as a World Heritage site. We will attempt to deconstruct the problematic structure of World Heritage sites and the organizations that flock to them.
