concrete

Installation
The Voice of Inconstant Savage
Commissioned for the Engawa – Japanese Contemporary Art Season programme organized by Calouste Gulbenkian Museum's Modern Art Center, The Voice of Inconstant Savage is an immersive installation that superimposes a prayer inspired by the story of a 16th-century Portuguese missionary, a chant from a Kakure-Kirishitan (hidden Christians) prayer – a religion rooted in Nagasaki Prefecture –, a chant from the Karawara spirits of the Awá indigenous people – who live in the Amazon rainforest – and a chorus of Western Gregorian chant. Morinaga questions the position of the aesthetics of inconstancy in relation to the discourse of the “savage” that modern society confronts.

Field recordings
Sombat Simla: Master Of Bamboo Mouth Organ
Simla is known in Thailand as one of the greatest living players of the khene, the ancient bamboo mouth organ particularly associated with Laos but found throughout East and Southeast Asia. His virtuosic and endlessly inventive renditions of traditional and popular songs have earned him the title ‘the god of khene’, and he is known for his innovative techniques and ability to mimic other instruments and non-musical sound, including, as a writer for the Bangkok Post describes, ‘the sound of a train journey, complete with traffic crossings and the call of barbecue chicken vendors’.

Installation
POLLINATORS
Focusing on the life of the Hmong people who live in the mountainous regions of northern Vietnam, on this occasion Morinaga presents an installation that overlays shamanistic rituals to wade off evil and misfortune with the honey-collecting activities of beekeepers. Through the symbiotic coexistence of humans, the environment, and life brought about by the respective dialogue between the shaman/spirits and beekeeper/bees, the work serves to introduce an alternative perspective to our social life and the coded systems that exist within it.

Field recordings
Gong Culture of Southeast Asia「Ede-Male」
The Ede groups live mainly in Tay Nguyen, the central highlands of Vietnam. Gongs are one of the most valuable instruments for Ede people. Each player strokes the back or front of the flat gong by a wooden stick aggressively, to create unique rhythmic patterns. However, for this recording, some of the tracks instead of using Gong as instruments, Bamboo are being used instead. Bamboo instruments such as Cing Kram are played by bamboo-made mallets/sticks. For Ede people, they usually practice with the Cing Kram first, and after they play the gong as the gong is more a sacred symbol and instrument. So, these bamboo instruments are used for twheir practices and they literally call it as “bamboo-gongs.”