KADIST Aki Kondo b.1987, Hokkaido HIKARI (2015) Video 33:35 minutes Aki Kondo utilizes animation, video, and mixed media to explore such varied topics as intimacy, loss, and the human body. Her work crosses multiple practices and frequently investigates the creative process as an object of study in and of itself, exploring how artistic mediums can communicate emotionally complicated narrative through expressive and resonant images. Her animation work is especially unconventional, and while her characters often appear fantastical, they invariably tell far more serious stories than their cartoonish form would suggest. Hikari (Light) (2015) depicts a fantastical and wrenching story about Juneko, a terminally ill young woman who communicates with her lover, a painter, through a portrait of her produced shortly after her death. As Juneko becomes sicker, her hair begins to fall out, a symptom of her unnamed illness. As her condition deteriorates, the film toggles back and forth with the animated story of Mogeji, a white strand of hair inhabiting Juneko’s body who becomes anthropomorphized through Kondo’s animation and recounts his own story of mortality and loss. Although its love story is unabashedly sentimental, Hikari (Light) also responds to the aftermath of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake in Japan and the national trauma it subsequently triggered. Reframed in this context, Juneko’s illness draws more unsettling allusions to the radiation poisoning experience by citizens living near nuclear reactors damaged during the earthquake and subsequent tsunami. Throughout, the animated interludes function as their own counter narrative depicting that, despite its elements of the fantastic, metaphorically depicts a body in crisis. Hauntingly complex, Hiraki (Light) offers a powerful meditation on loss, disease, and the inexorable necessity for hope amidst trauma. KADIST Aki Kondo b.1987, Hokkaido Mogeji’s Journey (original painting of the movie HIKARI) (2014) Oil on glass 35.6H x 43.2W cm Aki Kondo utilizes animation, video, and mixed media to explore such varied topics as intimacy, loss, and the human body. Her work crosses multiple practices and frequently investigates the creative process as an object of study in and of itself, exploring how artistic mediums can communicate emotionally complicated narrative through expressive and resonant images. Her animation work is especially unconventional, and while her characters often appear fantastical, they invariably tell far more serious stories than their cartoonish form would suggest. Mogeji’s Journey (2014) depicts three hand painted stills from an animated sequence in Aki Kondo’s film Hikari (Light) (2015). Kondo’s film tells the story of a young woman named Juneko who discovers that she is terminally ill and the ways that this impacts her lover, a painter, who tries to reconnect with her by painting her portrait from memory. As Juneko becomes sicker, her hair begins to fall out, a symptom of her unnamed illness. As her condition deteriorates, the film toggles back and forth with the animated story of Mogeji, a white strand of hair inhabiting Juneko’s body who becomes anthropomorphized through Kondo’s animation and recounts his own story of mortality and loss. The three canvases that comprise Mogeji’s Journey depict their own miniaturized narrative: Mogeji’s recounting of his personal story to a younger strand of hair, his sadness at recognizing his inevitable decline, and his descent into the unknown as he falls off Juneko’s body. Rendered with broadly expressive brushstrokes in a whimsically cartoonish style, Kondo draws on trenchant metaphors around vulnerability by focusing on how hair effectively “dies” as soon it is born. Reframed in the context of Kondo’s larger film project, Mogeji’s Journey becomes a far more serious and poetic meditation on the limits of inhabiting a human body and the inexorable “journey” towards the light that we all must take. KADIST Aki Kondo b.1987, Hokkaido Mogeji’s Journey (original painting of the movie HIKARI) (2014) Oil on glass 35.6H x 43.2W cm Aki Kondo utilizes animation, video, and mixed media to explore such varied topics as intimacy, loss, and the human body. Her work crosses multiple practices and frequently investigates the creative process as an object of study in and of itself, exploring how artistic mediums can communicate emotionally complicated narrative through expressive and resonant images. Her animation work is especially unconventional, and while her characters often appear fantastical, they invariably tell far more serious stories than their cartoonish form would suggest. Mogeji’s Journey (2014) depicts three hand painted stills from an animated sequence in Aki Kondo’s film Hikari (Light) (2015). Kondo’s film tells the story of a young woman named Juneko who discovers that she is terminally ill and the ways that this impacts her lover, a painter, who tries to reconnect with her by painting her portrait from memory. As Juneko becomes sicker, her hair begins to fall out, a symptom of her unnamed illness. As her condition deteriorates, the film toggles back and forth with the animated story of Mogeji, a white strand of hair inhabiting Juneko’s body who becomes anthropomorphized through Kondo’s animation and recounts his own story of mortality and loss. The three canvases that comprise Mogeji’s Journey depict their own miniaturized narrative: Mogeji’s recounting of his personal story to a younger strand of hair, his sadness at recognizing his inevitable decline, and his descent into the unknown as he falls off Juneko’s body. Rendered with broadly expressive brushstrokes in a whimsically cartoonish style, Kondo draws on trenchant metaphors around vulnerability by focusing on how hair effectively “dies” as soon it is born. Reframed in the context of Kondo’s larger film project, Mogeji’s Journey becomes a far more serious and poetic meditation on the limits of inhabiting a human body and the inexorable “journey” towards the light that we all must take. KADIST Aki Kondo b.1987, Hokkaido Mogeji’s Journey (original painting of the movie HIKARI) (2014) Oil on glass 43.2H x 35.6W cm Aki Kondo utilizes animation, video, and mixed media to explore such varied topics as intimacy, loss, and the human body. Her work crosses multiple practices and frequently investigates the creative process as an object of study in and of itself, exploring how artistic mediums can communicate emotionally complicated narrative through expressive and resonant images. Her animation work is especially unconventional, and while her characters often appear fantastical, they invariably tell far more serious stories than their cartoonish form would suggest. Mogeji’s Journey (2014) depicts three hand painted stills from an animated sequence in Aki Kondo’s film Hikari (Light) (2015). Kondo’s film tells the story of a young woman named Juneko who discovers that she is terminally ill and the ways that this impacts her lover, a painter, who tries to reconnect with her by painting her portrait from memory. As Juneko becomes sicker, her hair begins to fall out, a symptom of her unnamed illness. As her condition deteriorates, the film toggles back and forth with the animated story of Mogeji, a white strand of hair inhabiting Juneko’s body who becomes anthropomorphized through Kondo’s animation and recounts his own story of mortality and loss. The three canvases that comprise Mogeji’s Journey depict their own miniaturized narrative: Mogeji’s recounting of his personal story to a younger strand of hair, his sadness at recognizing his inevitable decline, and his descent into the unknown as he falls off Juneko’s body. Rendered with broadly expressive brushstrokes in a whimsically cartoonish style, Kondo draws on trenchant metaphors around vulnerability by focusing on how hair effectively “dies” as soon it is born. Reframed in the context of Kondo’s larger film project, Mogeji’s Journey becomes a far more serious and poetic meditation on the limits of inhabiting a human body and the inexorable “journey” towards the light that we all must take. KADIST Aki Sasamoto b.1980, Japan Poetry Light Stool (2012) Found furniture, poly globe, light bulb, lightning fixture, steel gooseneck and underwear Variable Aki Sasamoto is an artist whose mediums include performance, sculpture, dance, and whatever other form it takes to get her ideas across. She often collaborates with scientists, scholars, and other artists in the visual arts, music, and dance. She plays multiple roles as performer, dancer, sculptor, writer, and director. Her work has been presented both in performing as well as visual art venues, in white box galleries, and black box theaters, as well as in offbeat public sites, in Tokyo, New York and Europe. Poetry Light Stool evokes the spirit of Fluxus, the intermedia movement that encouraged artmaking to be simple, fun, and address everyday life. Aki Sasamoto does just that with this ironic work that revolves around found objects, namely a four-legged wooden stool to which she attached four wheels. Coiling above is a goose-neck cable that rises up and culminates in a globe lamp. The artist clothed the glowing orb with a pair of ladies’ panties. Sasamoto exposes what we hide—namely apparel that is revealed in private by the wearer and only visible to those who might be present during (un)dressing. The old saying defines identity as skin deep. Sasamoto thus participates in today’s questioning about race, gender, and identity plumage, which we conceal and reveal. KADIST Akira Takayama b.1969, Japan Happy Island - The Messianic Banquet of the Righteous (2015) 5-channel video installation 2:57, 5:09, 2:08, 2:55 and 5:38 minutes Takayama is a Japanese theatre director. He is the leader of the theatre unit Port B in Tokyo, which he founded in 2003 to create site-specific performances. He develops projects, which go beyond the framework of the existing theater.