Current
The Voice of Inconstant Savage
[Commissioned Work]
This multifaceted, polyphonic and immersive sound installation by Yasuhiro Morinaga establishes a historical encounter between Portuguese culture and Japan, memories and myths that remain and coexist with other cultures of the Amazon.
Commissioned for the Engawa – Japanese Contemporary Art Season programme , The Voice of Inconstant (2023) 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
BUNOHAN
Bunohanはマレーシアのデイン・サイード監督による長編デビュー作品である。マレーシアの東海岸、タイ国境に近い架空の街ブノハンを舞台に、殺し屋、ビジネスマン、ボクサーの三兄弟が繰り広げるストーリーを下敷きにした作品となっている。
Installation
HEAVENHELL
黒澤明監督の『天国と地獄』(1963年)の「地獄」のモデルとなった横浜の黄金町で撮影し、映画における過去と現在のイメージを並列的に表現し街の記憶に迫っていく視聴覚インスタレーション。
Cinema
The Edge of Daybreak
The Edge of Daybreak examines the devastating psychological landscape of a dysfunctional family as it falls from grace in the shadow of wars.
The oppression of the student uprisings in the 1970s and the 2006 military coup are the implicit historic anchors for an equal parts fluid and suffocating family chronicle marred by psychological trauma, violence and guilt complexes. On the eve of a shift in political power, a woman is taken to a safe house, sharing a final meal with her husband before he is smuggled abroad. 30 years earlier, Ploy was a young girl in a coma after nearly drowning. Her father, a soldier, has been missing for three years and her mother is recovering from a nervous breakdown. Together with her lover, her husband’s younger brother, she relives the traumas of their youth.
Impending doom and repression pervade monochrome shots of desolate, dilapidated locations with lanterns creating ghostly shadow theatre. The dark soundtrack, minimal cinematic action and slow tempo conjure up a hypnotic state. The characters seem imprisoned in emotional paralysis where past and present meld into a single, endless nightmare. A shadow crosses the sun: is it an omen or will it awaken everyone?