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POSTPONED Video Letter Exchange: A Community of Images (Screening and Performance)
Update on 7/19: This event has been postponed due to the ongoing investigation into potential chemical contamination in an area adjacent to the Bartram Mile Trail. The new date is TBD. For more details, please visit www.bartramsgarden.org/2024contamination
Join us for a special presentation of a performance and screening celebrating contemporary Japanese video artists with cinéSPEAK.
ABOUT THE PROGRAM
Community of Images: Japanese Moving Image Artists in the US, 1960s-1970s is an exhibition that explores experimental moving images created by Japanese artists and their connections to North America. Covering a wide range of practices and themes; including avant-garde film, performance, design and healing, ecology, expanded cinema, independent documentary, music, race, feminism, video art, community-based video, technology and communication, and others, the project features works and activities that took place in Japan and in the U.S.
As part of the public engagement programming for the exhibition, we will be presenting the 1983 Video Letter, a remarkable 64-minute compilation exchange of video letters that took place between video artists Shuji Terayama and Shuntaro Tanikawa in the months immediately preceding Terayama’s death. The Video Letter can be thought of as a home video produced by two preeminent poets and interlaid with highly abstract philosophizing, slightly aberrant behavior, and occasionally flamboyant visuals.
In homage to the original 1983 Video Letter, CCJ and JASGP commissioned a group of four contemporary video artists to produce a new video letter exchange as part of the Community of Images exhibition. Two of the artists are U.S.-based (Nadia Hironaka, Philadelphia, and Shinpei Takeda, San Diego), with two others based in Japan (Hikaru Suzuki, Tokyo and Yu Araki, Kyoto).
Unlike the original video, the videos were anonymized during the exchange that took place between February – May 2024. This screening will be the first world premiere screening.
ABOUT THE VIDEOS:
Video Letter Exchange:
Filmmakers: Nadia Hironaka, Yu Araki, Hikaru Suzuki, Shinpei Takeda / 2024 / Japan, USA / English, Japanese / 20 mins
Video Letter
Filmmakers: Shuji Terayama and Shuntaro Tanikawa / 1982-1983 / Japan / Japanese / 75 mins
ABOUT EIKO FAN:
Filmmaker and wood sculptor Eiko Fan was born and raised in Tokyo, then came to Philadelphia at age 18 in 1970 to study at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where she continued wood sculpture in the tradition of Buddhist art. Eiko fell in love with wood in the Philadelphia area, where there are walnut and cherries easily picked up from the road. She began carving many styles of wood sculpture before discovering her signature chainsaw technique to cut wood faster and at higher volume.
One day she began slicing wood to make wood sculpture costumes and, realizing some pieces looked like bird wings, she put her body inside to become a wood sculpture herself. In 1982 Eiko made a film with Rudy Burckhardt featuring herself and others wearing her wood sculptures in a sculpture creature world. Eiko started performing a live version with many performers and members of her own family participating as musicians to make Live Wood Sculpture come alive.
Live Wood Sculpture has been performed in many venues and museums including the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Painted Bride Arts Center, Fleisher Art Memorial, and Edinburgh Scotland.
Eiko is a recipient of the Leeway Foundation Transformation Award and continues creating chainsaw sculptures in her backyard. She likes her audience to, “jump into fun” during her Live Wood Sculpture.
About cinéSPEAK
cinéSPEAK is a Philadelphia-based cinema organization that engages diverse audiences through our independent, repertory, and foreign film programming; creating space and centering the stories of individuals and communities that are often underrepresented in mainstream cinema. cinéSPEAK promotes community togetherness and global understanding by engaging film enthusiasts while cultivating the next generation of discerning moviegoers; encouraging people to demand social justice both on-screen and throughout society. Support their work here!
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