The four selected artists for the second iteration of the Commission Project, Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Vision, Tokyo Photographic Art Museum were ODA Kaori, KOMORI Haruka, NAGATA Kosuke, MAKIHARA Eri.
Haruka Komori, SPRING, ON THE SHORES OF THE AGA (2025)
A portrait of Hideto Hatano, the instigator of the documentary film “Living on the River Agano” (1992, directed by Makoto Sato), as someone who has been taking care of the victims of Niigata Minamata disease for 50 years, and who, as part of that commitment, has had to unlearn what activism could and should do. Presented at Yebisu as an installation with archival materials.
Eri Makihara, THREE TIMES (2025)
Makihara experiments with the multimedia installation format to evoke communicative sensations inspired by sign and visual language. The installation comprises a short video in which an expressive face looks directly at the viewers, a live performances taking place inside TOP Museum and a workplace for sign language users co-managed by the artist. The performances are relayed at irregular intervals on the same screen showing the video.
Kaori Oda, RECORDING WITH MOTHER “WORKING HANDS” (2025)
An achingly intimate portrait of a day in the life of the artist’s mother. She learns a new karaoke song at the kitchen table and talks about the jobs she’s done over the decades. Oda’s camera studies her aged hand and the shifting light illuminating her face against the train window. A distant rumble registers the unsettling world beyond. Presented at Yebisu as an installation with the artist’s painting.
Kosuke Nakata, FIRE IN WATER (2025)
The process of alcohol fermentation is an entanglement of microorganisms, law, tax, bacteria, human behaviour and social structures. This becomes a prism through which Nakata’s extensively researched, compelling video essay explores the afterlife of Japan’s occupation of Korea.
Selection committee’s statement (Keisuke Oki, Ayako Saito, Leonhard Bartolomeus, Hiroko Tasaka, May Adadol Ingawanij):
In all four of the works, we could see that the artists were not afraid to take risks and try new forms and methods, and we could sense that each finalist was trying to break out of the formats they had been working in up until now. Each of the works took on a difficult challenge with remarkable energy and sincerity, and they all exceeded our expectations.
The Special Prize was awarded to Haruka Komori, who took on the challenge of documentary making as an intergenerational effort to pass on collective local memories of environmental injustice. While taking the form of a seemingly simple documentary film, the film is an almost impossible endeavour that asks complex and subtle questions about where documentary’s power and social impact lies. Its effort to show that honouring and transmitting collective memories are acts that connect people of different generations and times, and its suggestion of both continuity with and departure from the legacy of the pre-existing film, is original and timely.
Commission Project description
“Utilizing the domestic and international networks forged by the festival to date, winners are selected from among up-and-coming artists based in Japan. The selected artists are commissioned to create and exhibit moving-image works as products of the new festival. By introducing these works at cultural facilities and institutions in and outside Japan, the project aspires to become a scheme that supports the creative endeavors of artists.
Japan-based artists considered to have the experience and ability suitable for producing commissioned works for the project will be selected through the existing network of the Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions among others, as well as through a survey and research conducted by the curators of Tokyo Photographic Art Museum. As in the previous edition, artists were recommended by the curators of Tokyo Photographic Art Museum and the Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions 2024 Commission Project Office.” Yebisu, TOP Museum
A symposium announcing the selected artists and discussing the Commission Project took place on 15 February 2024, part of Yebisu 2024 festival 30 ways to go to the moon. Speakers: OKI Kesuke, SAITO Ayako, Leonard BARTOLOMEUS, May Adadol INGAWANIJ, TASAKA Hiroko, HORIUCHI Naoko.