Commons Forum #2
“Healing and Rebirth: The Future of Our ‘Commons,’ As Conceived Between Two Crises”

  • Forum
  • Online-only event
'A Room of Her Own: Rei Naito and Light' by Yuko Nakamura

Ten years since the earthquake; one year since the onset of the current pandemic. The invisible and uncontrollable wonders of radioactivity and virulence have placed huge question marks over our anthropocentric values and our faith in technology. On the other hand, every time humans have experienced a natural disaster or pandemic, art, religion, and other cultural institutions have allowed us to heal our individual and collective traumas and restored us to order and normality.
How might we be able, in a time suspended between two crises, to reestablish a new ecology, to strive for a form of harmony that would include the non-human? And how, too, might we remodel the “commons” of our society? Recovery and rebirth; art and religion; history and hereafter. A decade after 3/11, we turn this enormous question toward the future.

Panelists |
Lieko Shiga (Photographer)
Meiro Koizumi (Artist)
Akira Takayama (Artist)

Moderator | Chiaki Soma (Director of Theater Commons Tokyo)

Profile

Lieko Shiga
Born 1980 in Aichi Prefecture. Graduated from Chelsea College of Art and Design in London in 2004. Living in Miyagi Prefecture since 2008. Despite being affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 she continued her work and held a solo exhibition “Rasen Kaigan” (Sendai Mediatheque) in 2012. Her recent exhibitions include: “In the Wake” (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), “New Photography 2015” (The Museum of Modern Art, New York) in 2015, “Blind Date” (Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art) in 2017, and more.

Meiro Koizumi
Koizumi studied at the International Christian University, Tokyo (1996-1999), Chelsea College of Art and Design, London (1999-2002), and Rijksakademie vanbeeldend kunsten, Amsterdam (2005-2006). His previous solo exhibitions include “Battlelands” at Pérez Art Museum Miami (2018), “Today my Empire sings” at VACANT, Tokyo (2017), “Trapped Voice Would Dream of Silence” at Arts Maebashi (2015), “Project Series 99: Meiro Koizumi” at Museum of Modern Art, New York (2013). He participated in numerous group shows such as, Sharjah Biennale (2019), Shanghai Biennale (2018), and “BMW Tate Live” at Tate Modern, London (2013).

©Meiro Koizumi

Akira Takayama
Akira Takayama formed the creative collective Port B in 2002. He produces a wide range of artworks and projects that include tour-style performances, video installations, social experiments, discussions, and sightseeing tours. In 2013, he founded Port Urban Research Center, which applies theatrical methods to tourism, urban planning, social practices, and media development, among other activities.

©Yuji Oku

Chiaki Soma
Representative Director of NPO Arts Commons Tokyo, Art producer. Chiaki was the first Program Director of Festival/Tokyo, Japan’s leading performing arts festival, from 2009-2013, as well as the first Director of Steep Slope Studio in Yokohama from 2006-2010. She served on the Agency for Cultural Affairs’ Culture Council Cultural Policy Subcommittee from 2012-2015. In 2015, she received the Chevalier de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Since 2016, she has been a Specially Appointed Associate Professor, College of Contemporary Psychology, Body Expression and Cinematic Arts, Graduate School of Contemporary Psychology of Rikkyo University, Tokyo; since 2017, she has served as the chairperson of the Theater Commons Tokyo Executive Committee, as well as its director. She is also involved in theatrical curation for the 2019 edition of the Aichi Triennale.

Photo: Yurika Kawano

Date

March 11th [Thu] / 19:00-21:00

Performance times

120 min.

Venue

Online

How to Participate

Please access the event via the link sent upon your reservation.

Buy Pass

Language

Japanese