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’.

Cinema

Siege – A Closed Off Man
In 1935, the First High School (旧制第一高等学校) was relocated from Hongo to Komaba, where the students were separated from others and enhanced their homogeneity as First High School students by holing up on the campus. However, in an increasingly intense World War II, it was no longer possible to maintain the identity of the First High School. In the consciousness of a student, “I”, who has been devoting himself to research in a desire to identify with the First High School students, the image of First High School in the Komaba Campus era appears.

Field recordings

Gong Culture of Southeast Asia「Ede-Female」
The Ede groups live mainly in Tay Nguyen, the central highlands of Vietnam. Ede women are the master of their families and the children usually take the family name of their mother. This recording consists of the music played by the only the female group of Ede (Ede-bih – subgroup of original Ede). They only play the gong on special occasions such as festivals, funerals, and welcoming guests. Besides these, their gongs are usually kept in the wooden box and preserved them in the church. In this recording, they played different gong music with 7 gongs. The names of gongs are termed by the order of family members and this female gong group only uses the knobbed gong (also called nipple gong) that the sound is far more resonated than the music from the Ede male gong group which is faster rhythmic patterns and wilder tonalities.