Tomoko Sato is an artist reorganizing vast amounts of research on land and history into new narratives, and pioneering techniques of reimagining their telling in lecture performances. Confluences of multiple (hi)stories, her lectures act as the materialization of potential alternative fictions via the artist’s voice and body.
Commissioned by Theater Commons Tokyo, Sato has been engaged in longterm fieldwork and creative production in the Minato ward area. She presented the work’s Introduction at our 2021 edition, taking Taro Okamoto’s 1965 urban treatise Ghost Tokyo as a starting point and quoting from the movie Godzilla and the plays of Koharu Kisaragi to connect post-war Tokyo with the present (Last year’s work will be exhibited as a video installation at the The Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions from February 4. Click here for details). We now at last have Chapter 1, which will open its arms to the city’s fluctuations, to inhuman beings (represented by ghosts), delivering a lecture performance that will double as a new urban theory.