Yuko Nakamura
"Suspended"

  • Interactive AR Film
  • Online participation
‘Suspended’ by Yuko Nakamura
Live “life” in limbo from the perspective of a child with ill parents – Yuko Nakamura presents an AR film experience that makes space for an era where everyone lives in proximity to disease.

Filmmaker and artist Yuko Nakamura has earned high praise for her unique visual lexicon that tangibly captures subtle movements, seen in works such as A Room of Her Own: Rei Naito and Light. She has also compiled her long-running essay series for literary magazine Subaru (Shueisha) and published Mothering: Our Voice, Our Care in Modern Society. The book features interviews with women of her generation and literary and philosophical quotes from women in history, interwoven with Nakamura’s memories of her childhood and relationship with her mother. Producing a grand, philosophical series of essays in search of moments where mothering takes place, she breaks new ground in women’s literature.
Commissioned by Theater Commons Tokyo, Nakamura produces her first AR film, focusing on children with ill parents. “When you live with parents who are sick, omens of illness and death appear in the house. As the child experiences the world through these signs, its images approach them in high-resolution,” she explains. One-by-one, viewers visit a house that appears formerly inhabited by a family, experiencing a duplicated world from a child’s perspective.
In the age of coronavirus, we are all forced to live in a state of physical and mental anxiety. How much of our indescribable pain and sensations can we heal by experiencing “life” in limbo, nearing death?

Profile

Yuko Nakamura
Yuko Nakamura was born in Tokyo in 1977 and graduated from Keio University’s Faculty of Letters as a Philosophy major. Following her work as an editor at a philosophy publisher, she joined TV MAN UNION. She is involved in the creation of many narrative documentaries that dive past the surface of the modern world, treating topics such as art and architecture, philosophy and more. Her films include “Memories of Origin: Hiroshi Sugimoto”; “A Room of Her Own: Rei Naito and Light” (official selection at 2017 Canadian International Documentary Festival Hot Docs 2017); TV documentary WOWOW “Memories of Origin: Contemporary Artist Hiroshi Sugimoto” (finalist for International Emmy Award for Arts Programming 2012); NHK “Illusory Tokyo Project: Three Potential Dreams of the Capital” (winner of Galaxy Honors for programs recommended 2015); NHK “Architecture Knows: Postwar 1970 as Seen From Landmarks,” and more.
In Theater Commons Tokyo ’19, she directed the reading performance of Susan Sontag’s “Alice in Bed.” Her long-running essay series, “Mothering: Our Voice, Our Care in Modern Society” in literary magazine Subaru, has finally been published as a single author for the first time in Dec, 2020.

Dates

February 11th [Thu]-28th [Sun]
Weekdays | 15:00/15:30/16:00/16:30/17:00/17:30/
18:00/18:30/19:00
Weekends and holidays | 11:00/11:30/12:00/12:30/13:00/13:30/
14:00/14:30/15:00/15:30/16:00/16:30/17:00

Days off | February 15th [Mon], 22nd [Mon]

Performance times

approx. 30 min.
*Tickets are valid for one performance only.

Venue

Goethe-Institut Tokyo
7-5-56 Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-0052

How to Participate

In-person participation | Booking essential. Show general admission pass on entry.
– This work is meant to be experienced one person at a time.
– Participants will be guided at the time of their reservation on a first come, first served basis.

Online participation | Please access the event via the link sent upon your reservation.

Buy Pass

Language

In-person participation | Japanese
Online participation | Japanese (with English subtitles)

Credit

Direction and Screenplay | Yuko Nakamura

Cast | Kyoko Miyashita, Sonia, Rion Sogumo
Director of Photography | Yasuyuki Sasaki
Assistant Director of Photography | Rikuo Ueno
Sound Designer | Koh Yu Chang
Gaffer | Kenta Gokan
Production Designer | Nao Idei
Costume Designer | Rie Usui
Hair and Make-up | Aki Kudo
Assistant Director | Shun Sato
VR Production | A440 Inc.
Cooperation | Eri Kato, Ikuko Natsukari, Ryuichi Hisanaga
Venue Support | Goethe-Institut Tokyo

Production | Theater Commons Tokyo, A440 Inc.