My work is often about feeling like I am somewhere in between, so I love that you’re joining me here, in this space in between Japan and the US, between English, Japanese, and the language of images, as well as in between the beginning and end of this Ichi Oku House project.
About five years ago it felt like all the significant houses in my life were in mourning. The house where I grew up, the house where my mom grew up, and the house where my dad grew up had all lost a loved-one. In addition, Andy and I were leaving the house we had lived in for ten years to move to the house where my mom grew up in Japan. While I felt deeply about all of these houses, I was also overwhelmed by the objects and memories they contained. In order to tease out my thoughts and navigate my responsibilities I began writing, imagining these houses as a single living creature made up of thousands of chambers and objects separated by space and time but linked by memory.
I wrote dialogue for this creature and its caretaker, Mnemosyne, and shot two videos in preparation for a live performance that was scheduled to take place in New York in May 2020. When the pandemic indefinitely postponed the opening, I was secretly relieved. I had begun the process of dramatization by testing materials: old cardboard boxes, local handmade paper, and found objects. Then I switched to plastic, digging through recycle bins on the local college campus. The materials accumulating in my studio were making it feel like a trash landfill, and I was unsatisfied with the dialogue that I had recorded. In some ways I was thankful to be able to put the project aside, at least from the front of my mind.
A few months later we were driving through the Japanese countryside when Andy asked me what kind of art I would make if I had unlimited resources and freedom. We had just passed one of the countless dilapidated akiya, or empty houses, that dot the landscape. Families hold on to these links to the past long after everyone has moved to bigger cities, returning once a year to clear ancestral graves, but otherwise letting the houses fall further and further into disrepair until either the last family member has died or the house has completely succumbed to gravity. I began imagining what it would be like if I used one of these houses as the raw material for an interactive sculpture. Rather than trying to bring a self-contained show into a supposedly neutral traditional theatre space, how exciting would it be if the main character of the performance were the house itself? And so here I am. I am currently auditioning houses.
Many city governments in Japan, particularly rural ones hoping to lure young people back from the cities, run “akiya banks” that list properties for rent or for sale. Houses in the remote region where I live can sell for less than $10,000 or over $50,000, but many tend to be around $20,000. In most cases they are in need of extensive repair and often the belongings of the last owner have been left behind and need to be cleared out.
I have been keeping an eye on these lists. I have also been making inquiries with friends and family in both Japan and America, many of whom are excited and perhaps relieved that someone might be interested in rescuing these things they cannot rescue themselves. I still only have a very basic grasp of the language, but this process has forced me to put my shaky and incomplete knowledge to use. As humbling as it has been, it has been fun and interesting to learn more about the history of this place that my mother left and where I have chosen to live. I feel lucky in so many ways; most importantly that I get to continue my experiment of living as an artist in rural Japan. Hopefully in a few months I will have made a decision on a house and will update you once again.