Photo: Yukiko Koshima
Leaf of Time - Sweep
2013
Video Installation (HD 16:9) 10 mins
Venue: Arts Initiative Tokyo (AIT) Tokyo, Japan
ー
Leaves fall every autumn, which marks the passage of the seasons. I filmed an act by myself in which I collected fallen ginkgo tree leaves in a pile and walked forward with it at two different locations in Tokyo. It changed its shape as some leaves were left behind and others were added. The whole scene tries to symbolically represent unsolvable social issues. Yet, I tried to move forward by making a new path. One sequence was filmed in a gingko tree promenade in Gaien-Mae, Tokyo. In that, I made a small pile of fallen leaves on the cleaned street and moved it forward while avoiding pedestrians. I was interrupted by many visitors enjoying the yellow colored leaves in the fresh autumn air. I would repeat the collecting and scattering actions with a broom. In a tunnel- like promenade, the different type of sounds from footsteps of pedestrians and the sweeping broom mixed and echoed.
Another image was filmed on a street filled with gingko tree leaves near the Diet, in Tokyo. I filmed myself waking as straight forward as possible while sweeping the leaves. I scratched the surface of the untouched pavement with fallen leaves with a broom to make a clear tracing of my action. I was thinking about leaves contaminated by radioactivity in the days following the nuclear power plant explosion in March 2011 as well as those leaves of today. Along the trace I marked, vague thin ridges appeared. The sound of sweeping is like that of waves washing a seashore. I asked myself if this sound could wash away radioactivity, too.
Camera and Edit: Hitoshi Takeuchi
Exhibition: 2013 Between you, me and the Lamppost, Arts Initiative Tokyo (AIT) Tokyo, Japan
Between you, me and the Lamppost is a curator project within the framework of the educational course on contemporary art called Making Art Different (MAD) of Arts Initiative Tokyo[AIT].