Art in Resistance SPIELART 2015

Wider das Vergessen

Akira Takayama

 

 

 

Die Reaktor-Katastrophe von Fukushima ist in der Öffentlichkeit nahezu in Vergessenheit geraten. Dabei hat sich an den verheerenden Zuständen nichts geändert. Der japanische Künstler Akira Takayama rückt mit seinem Stück „Happy Island“ das Unglück zurück ins Licht der Aufmerksamkeit. 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi, who are you?

I’m Akira Takayama, artistic director of Port B. I develop projects that connect collaboratively with other media and genre, and work to expand the conventions of theatre and the audience in society and the urban space.

What is your Project for the SPIELART Festival? What can we expect to see?
I will show HAPPY ISLAND. You are going to see cows that live on a happy island.

Tell us a little bit about your the style and topics you have developed for the stage.
This work is a video installation, but it is also an attempt to “perform” a painting entitled The Messianic Banquet of the Righteous on the Last Day.

There will also be a lecture of yours that takes place a few days before the festival starts – what will it be about?
I don’t know yet. I still consider what I could talk about.

This isn’t the first time that you are approaching the Fukushima catastrophe artistically. How do you find ways to express yourself facing this huge desaster?
I try finding detours that politic, economy, and mass media don’t want to / cannot make.

Have you ever been to the Fukushima region personally?
Yes, often.

How did you get in touch with the owner of the farm and how did you hear about him?
One of my friends wrote a novel about the farm. He introduced me the owner. I heard that he was a difficult man and hard activist. It was partly true. He keeps the cows for the protest against TEPCO and Japanese government. But he loves the cows simply as cow keeper.

What do you think are the prospects of the Fukushima region?
It will be open gradually, and people will try to live there again. That’s also Japanese government’s will. They want people to forget that Fukushima is still in big trouble.

What are your future hopes for the region?
I don’t have much hope for the region. I even think the part of the region should be closed, and it could become a special monumental park for remembering the catastrophe caused by human technology.

What are you looking forward to at the SPIELART Festival?
I focused on a specific issue of Japan. I look forward to seeing how the visitors in Munich will connect it with their own reality.

Related Posts

Schreibe einen Kommentar