prayer, memory and revelation～tomiyama taeko’s socially … · 2020. 11. 11. · tomiyama...

― 246 ― Prayer, Memory and Revelation～Tomiyama Taeko’s Socially Engaged Art

In “Beyond Hiroshima: The Return of the Repressed,” Ayelet Zohar points to a shift in the

practice of some contemporary artists in Japan indicating a new willingness on their part to examine

wartime memory and trauma.1 Zohar identifi es three postwar generations of artists who have engaged

in different ways with these changing conditions. According to Zohar, while the first and second

postwar generations for the most part remained silent or had to face the challenge of “practical

rehabilitation,” younger artists of the third generation （born in the 1970s onwards） “suggest facing the

dilemmas, pain and suff ering of the past through accepting the idea of Japan’s responsibility, in a more

direct and honest manner” （Zohar 2015, 12）.

I find this framework useful when considering the question of where to locate the work of

Tomiyama Taeko in postwar and contemporary art history. Tomiyama is in her late 90s, and thus

chronologically of the fi rst generation described by Zohar; nevertheless, throughout her life and career

as an artist she has been devoted to questioning the silences and omissions in dominant historical

narratives, in a context where“refrain from public engagement with discourses of war responsibility,

aff ect and memory” has been the norm （Zohar 2015, 12）. The unique creative practice that Tomiyama

has developed over the last five or more decades does not fit easily into histories of postwar and

contemporary Japanese art; at the same time, as I will try to show here, the artist’s evolving practice

which draws on the media of painting, printmaking, collage works and collaborations with composer

and musician Takahashi Yuji （b. 1938） can also be seen as a precursor to performative and socially-

engaged practices seen in works by younger, contemporary artists.

Hagiwara Hiroko has argued that Tomiyama herself felt estranged and marginalized in relation to

the emerging contemporary art world in Tokyo in the postwar era where “American Abstract

Expressionism and Pop Art” were fashionable. Her depictions of the world of mines she had discovered

Introduction

Rebecca JENNISON

Socially Engaged ArtPrayer, Memory and Revelation～Tomiyama Taeko’s

― 247 ―京都精華大学紀要　第五十三号

in Kyushu and Hokkaido were viewed as “unwomanly” or dismissed as “left-wing” or political art by

critics in Tokyo; at the same time, she was seen as a “bourgeois, city-bred painter” and a “questionable

outsider” in the mining towns （Hagiwara 2010, 133）. As Tomiyama herself stated in an interview with

Hagiwara, “ If I am to be marginalized anyway, I would rather remain on the margin, to be

independent and be myself ” （Hagiwara 2010, 133）. As Hagiwara goes on to argue, the unique creative

practice that Tomiyama has developed since establishing her one-woman studio, Hidane Kobo, in 1975,

has enabled her to create alternative, more democratic means of circulating her art “on and off the

margins” of the art contemporary art world. Hagiwara writes:

In Tomiyama’s case, creating an alternative to established modes of showing, reviewing and

reproducing art has entailed creating alternative audiences, and also alternative perspectives for

both making and seeing art. Ironically, the very conditions limiting Tomiyama’s production have

served to create a unique alternative base for the artist, which has, in turn enabled her to keep on

producing and developing her art for decades. （Hagiwara 2010, 146）

As Hagiwara shows, Tomiyama’s choice to work independently, outside established institutions of the

art world, aff orded her a freedom to pursue her own creative path that in turn has created spaces for

interaction and engagement. Critic and curator Kitagawa Furam and Tomiyama’s long-time

collaborator Takahashi Yuji have also commented on the artist’s alternative and innovative practice.

In the “Introduction” to From the Asians （1998） more than twenty years ago, Kitagawa Furam

wrote that there has long been a tradition of “the outsider artist” who is on the margins of the art

market but who “expresses our anxieties and hopes for the future, who revives forgotten memories,

who unearths small wonders. Ironically, this approach has earned art and artists a certain level of

respect, even though society often considers the artist as an unwelcome presence, and his or her

artworks unnecessary” （Kitagawa 1998, 4）. Kitagawa goes on to explain that artists who sought

acceptance in the museum and institutional system began to become disassociated from society, which

in turn contributed to “a gradual weakening of the personal, prophetic, nonconformist role of art”

（Kitagawa 1998, 5）.

In response to these conditions, Kitagawa described new directions in 20th century art that aim

to reestablish the link between art and societymostly emerging from the so-called “third world.”

According to Kitagawa, artists were beginning to look directly at issues and themes such as “ethnicity,

political borders, north-south problems, disease, gender and so on…aiming to connect with the public, in

this sense can truly be called, ‘public art’.” It is in this context that Kitagawa comments Tomiyama

Taeko and her work:


Taeko Tomiyama is an artist who has challenged the distortions of history from a feminist

viewpoint, and her works in this show are closely connected to the situation in South Korea since

the Kwangju Massacre in 1980…Tomiyama’s works do not simply document historical events,

but express their potential…It is these qualities, together with her long and deep association with

two major Asian cultures that have helped her succeed in reaching the general public. （Kitagawa

1998, 5-6）

Tomiyama Taeko’s long-time collaborator, musician and composer Takahashi Yuji, also writes of

the stance and creative practice of artists who work on the margins of the mainstream art world, and

who aim to create new perspectives and a new kind of “public” art. Of such artists, Takahashi writes:

Individual artists who have been forced to live on the periphery of the art system are joining

hands voluntarily to create alternative perspectives. This goes beyond making interesting objects

to the building of communities whose creative acts allow us to question social norms and the way

we live. Our collaboration with slides and music is such an experiment. Free of frames on

museum walls, images appear and disappear. Music no longer fi xed to a musical score, reenacts

live performance. This space, this moment when sound and image interact becomes a mirror

before the viewer who questions our time. And all questions come back to the one who asks.

（Takahashi 2001,12）

Here, Takahashi highlights the unique use of multi-media slide works that he and Tomiyama developed

after establishing Hidane Kobo. He not only notes the practice of questioning social norms, but explains

this in terms of the aff ective and relational encounter between artists and viewers who interact in live,

performance spaces where both can respond to pressing issues of the times.

In 2009, Embracing Asia: Tomiyama Taeko’s Art ～ 1950-2009, aff orded an opportunity to show

Tomiyama’s works and present a live performance with Takahashi Yuji at the Echigo-Tsumari Art

Triennale. News articles and interviews at the time touched on the question of social and political

themes in art and the freedom of expression of the artist to treat them.2 Discourse and publications on

questions surrounding “socially engaged art” have continued to evolve over the last two decades and

new research and curatorial projects too numerous to discuss here have emerged. More recently, new

critical spaces for the discussion of art that is both experimental and socially engaged have appeared in


the online journal, Field: A Journal for Socially Engaged Art . 3

In “Japan’s Social Turn: An Introductory Companion,” art historian Justin Jesty insightfully

reviews recent developments in discussions of socially engaged art in Japan and points to the need to

“highlight places where Japan’s social turn might require that our assumptions, expectations and habits

of seeing relative to socially engaged art be revised” （Jesty 2017, 1）. At the end of his essay, he cites

examples of works that have been left out of the “canonical history of the neo avant-gardes in the U.S.”

and refers to Tomiyama Taeko as an example of an artist who has “devoted most of her artistic career

to social and political causes” （Jesty 2017,10）. Citing the “representational modes” Tomiyama deploys

in her work as one factor that has led her to be overlooked, he goes on to conclude that the 2009

retrospective of Tomiyama’s work in an abandoned school building demonstrates that the “format of

the eclectic art project can accommodate more political diversity than any museum has been able to

do” （Jesty 2017, 11）. Still more recently, in a chapter of his new study on contemporary art history,

Yamamoto Hiroki outlines a trajectory of techniques and practices of “post-imperial art” in the context

of a discussion of legacies of colonialism in East Asia and notes that Tomiyama Taeko is a rare

example of an artist who has consistently examined the question of war responsibility in her art

（Yamamoto 2019, 253）.

In the following sections, of this essay, my aim is to look at selected works by Tomiyama Taeko

that have continued, as Jesty notes, to circulate outside major museums, “primarily through activist

networks, local and university art museums, small galleries and in the work of historians and

anthropologists” （Jesty, 2017, 10）. While focusing on three themes or tropes that recur in

Tomiyama’s worksprayer, memory and revelationI will also aim to examine the formal practices

of the artist more closely, focusing on her use of collage as a preferred medium of expression in a

context where new technological media are constantly evolving. In Section II, I will discuss selected

mixed-media collage works that were exhibited in a group exhibition held in Berlin in 2015, titled

Verbotene Bilder/Banned Images . Revised and updated versions of three of Tomiyama’s and

Takahashi’s slide/DVD works that were also included in the exhibition Prayer in Memory Kwangju

May, 1980 （1980/2001） , A Memory of the Sea （1988） and Revelation from the Sea （2014） have been

reissued by Voyager Japan, Inc. 4

I. Prayer and Protest in the Banned Images ExhibitionIn the fall of 2014, Tomiyama Taeko was invited to show works in a group exhibit titled


Verbotene Bilder: Kontrolle und Zensur in den Demokratien Ostasiens/Banned Images: Control and

Censorship in East Asian Democracies , at a small, alternative gallery in Berlin. The exhibit included

works by Nakagaki Katsuhisa and an essay by curator Arai Hiroyuki who curated Hyogen no Fujiyu

tenkesareta monotachi （The non-freedom of expression exhibitthose who have been erased）, an

exhibition held at the Furuto gallery in Tokyo in 2015. The curators of the Berlin show, Han Nataly

Jung-Hwa, Yajima Tsukasa and Yoo Jae Hyun, brought together works by six artists including Chen

Chieh-jen （b. 1960, Taiwan）, Chen Ching-Yao （b. 1976,Taiwan）, Hong Sung-dam (b. 1955, Souh Korea）,

Nakagaki Katsuhisa （b. 1944, Japan）, Sunmu （b. 1972, North Korea） and Tomiyama Taeko. While the

styles of each artist and specifi c contexts from which they emerged were diff erent, the curators found

that they all, “cast a critical eye over present-day policies, trespass into taboo areas in their respective

countries, take a stand on freedom of opinion and human rights, treat sensitive topics from the past and

do not shy away from the social and political conditions inherent in their works” （Han 2015, 6）.

Tomiyama, the eldest and only woman in the show, submitted 50 works that were shown under the

title, Silenced by History RevisitedFrom the Life of a Woman Artist , and included mixed-media

collages on paper, lithographs, silk screens and digital reproductions of oil paintings. The works were

organized in four chapters or acts with accompanying DVD/slide works, each organized around a

theme selected by the artist.

In the introduction to Verbotene Bilder/Banned Images , art critic Vladimir Tikhonov refl ects on

the intersecting geopolitical histories of the region and how these histories have shaped cultural

production in East Asia. After 1945, although Japan’s empire had offi cially disappeared, its shadow was

cast over the postwar era. He notes that Japan’s postwar economic boom, spurred on by the Korean

War, created conditions in Japan “not unlike much of the capitalist world…self-censored by infl uential

public and private bodies which largely regulate the access to the public space of expression”

（Tikhonov 2015, 114）. He argues that in Japan, “pre-war ‘hard’ authoritarian structures evolved into

the softer, less explicit authoritarianism of the post-war consumerist society, tightly controlled by

bureaucratic and corporate might” （Tikhonov 2015,13-14）.

When selecting work to include in this exhibit, Tomiyama insisted that prints from the series,

Prayer in Memory ～ Kwangju, May 1980, and the accompanying DVD work be included. This series

and the collaboration with Takahashi Yuji that has continued since then was a defi ning moment in the

artist’s career. Both in this work and in the earlier series, Chained Hands in Prayer （1975）, based on

the poems of Kim Chi Ha, “prayer” is the central trope used in a context of protest against the military

dictatorship in Korea in the 1970s. This trope recurs, but takes other forms in later series of works on


memory and war trauma. A brief discussion of the trajectory that led her to produce this work may

provide background to Tomiyama’s later works.

Tomiyama traces the roots of her concern with the role of art and society to the “underground”

stream of artists and musicians ten years her senior who were active in the proletariat art movement

during the 20s, and during WWII. In the 1950s, she produced drawings, oil paintings and printssome

experimenting with modernist styles of painting, but many in the “reportage” style of the early

postwar-- on the theme of copper and coal mines in Kyushu and Hokkaido （Hagiwara, 2010, 130-134）.

In the early postwar era when energy production shifted from coal to oil, many miners migrated to

South America in search of work and Tomiyama followed them; the theme of miners, energy resources

and migration continue to appear in her work today. After returning from these journeys to South

America and the Middle East along sea routes that taught her the history of European colonialism, she

turned her attention to Japan’s own colonial past and current conditions on the Korean Peninsula. In

an essay refl ecting on this period, Tomiyama writes:

In 1970, I traveled to Korea. Though the war had ended a quarter of a century earlier, I saw the

wounds and scars of the Korean War everywhere. The Korean War, virtually a proxy war

between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union, in the wake of Japan’s colonial occupation, had

severed the North and South. It was as if the grid of the Cold War were frozen in the earth itself.

This was a country closely watched by the military, a country in darkness, both yesterday and

today. I tried to describe Korea’s dark path in the night with my art. （Tomiyama 2001, 2）

Soon after news of the people’s uprising in Gwangju in May, 1980 reached Japan, Tomiyama

began working on a series of black and white prints; at the same time, Takahashi was composing music

for a TV broadcast. When they learned that the television productions they had worked on would be

censored, they transformed the prints and music into a portable, multi-media slide work, produced as

“Three Messages,” a slide-show, pamphlet and SP recording. Of the events leading up to the creation

of this work, Tomiyama writes:

May, 1980. The people of Kwangju rose up against the curfew that had been imposed by the U.S.

backed military regime, and reclaimed Kwangju. But more troops were sent in and the people

were once again suppressed and silenced. I worked quickly to produce Prayer in Memory at a

moment when Korean artists risked arrest and suppression if they responded with art work.

Prayer in Memory was made into a series of slides shown in South Korea, Europe and the U.S. by

human rights groups. It was shown at churches, universitieswherever people gathered.


（Tomiyama 2001, 2）

Tomiyama Taeko and Takahashi Yuji first met at a gathering celebrating the publication of

Midnight--Poems by Kim Chi Ha, Lithographs by Tomiyama Taeko , and they later produced a

recording to accompany the book. In 1975, Takahashi composed music for the first slide work

produced by Hidane Kobo, Chained Hands in Prayer ; in it he interwove musical themes from a

composition by Hayashi Hikaru （b. 1931）, student protest songs of the time, and well-known Korean

folk songs.5

Curator and photographer Kobayashi Hiromichi has also collaborated with Tomiyama on

numerous projects for over two decades and has contributed greatly both to the production and

analysis of the multi-media slide works. He notes innovative formal and technical practices the artist

has developedincluding collages such as those shown in Berlin, and the multi-media slide and DVD

works she has continued to produce. He explains:

It is not unusual nowadays for an artist to use her or his own works as materials to produce fi lm

or videos…The process of taking apart and reconstructing paintingsalready a complete system

of representationto create a diff erent system of representation, has the potential to do much

more than just technically alter the form of the work. The artist’s practice constitutes a critique

of painting itself and the concepts underlying modern art that have helped shape the very values

and foundations of modern society. （Kobayashi 2009,10）

Kobayashi shows that Tomiyama was producing paintings with the process of taking them apart and

making them into slide works already in mind. He adds that Tomiyama’s work can be viewed in the

context of a longer tradition of “anti-authoritarian” art that extends, in part, from the Dada artists of

the 20th century:

Like artists of the Dadaist and Surrealist movements in the early 20th century who took apart

and reconstructed recognized works of art, making them into collages, Tomiyama uses historical

documents and iconographic images that constitute important traces of history in her collages.

（Kobayashi 2009, 11）

Hagiwara Hiroko has also focused on the techniques and materials used by the artist in collages that


allow for the juxtaposition of images from diff erent temporal and geopolitical contexts to produce new

images and meanings. In her insightful discussion of collages in the series titled The Fox and the Coal

Mines （2000）, Hagiwara highlights the artist’s use of a marbling technique that evokes “ancient

geological strata.” She writes:

The audience is invited on an imaginary journey to the ancient geological strata formed hundreds

of thousands of years ago, while simultaneously being urged to face the modern imperial history

that exploited both the ancient natural resources and the people of the 20th century who were

conscripted to mine them. （Hagiwara 2010, 141）

In the following section, I will discuss selected collage works that were exhibited in the Banned Images

exhibit in Berlin; these works are visually dense and demanding for viewers but at the same time

showboth conceptually and in terms of technique that Tomiyama is continuing to use collage as a

means to deconstruct and reconstruct images as she interacts both with her own works and ongoing

events to create an alternative visual narrative of history.

II. Memory and Revelation in “Sorrows of War and the Postwar Ear : What a Woman Artist Saw”

While prayer and protest were central themes in earlier works, “remembrance” and reconciliation

became central themes, and the fi gure of the miko or shaman the vehicle for this in works such as A

Memory of the Sea . Here we will look more closely at selected works from the series of collage works

exhibited in Berlin and ask how Tomiyama juxtaposes fragments of earlier prints and paintings to

create new meanings and associations between past and present. In these works we see that

Tomiyama continues to discover ways to explore a collective, international experience of war memory

and trauma and fi nds that her message connects unexpectedly with others in seemingly unassociated

places.

When Tomiyama was asked to show work in Banned Images , she decided to create a new series

of fi fteen works on paper titled, “Sorrows of War and the ‘Postwar’ Era: What a Woman Artist Saw”

which became “Act Three” of the exhibit. Acutely aware that the show was going to open in Berlin on

the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII and the fourth anniversary of the triple disasters in Northeast

Japan, Tomiyama was determined to exhibit these new works. She had fi rst visited Germany in 1967


when she traveled to Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

When she returned to Berlin in 1982 to exhibit

prints and slides on Kim Chi Ha’s poems and the

people’s uprising in Gwangju, she discovered a

vibrant community of artists, musicians and

feminist activists there. When she came again in

1985 to show the fi lm, Hajike Hosenka （Pop-Out

Balsam Seed）, her visit coincided with President

Richard von Weizsäcker’s well-known speech on

the 40th anniversary of WWII.

As Hagiwara has argued, collage has

proven to be a critically important medium for

Tomiyama, helping her to make “new analytical

and artistic connections” （Hagiwara 2010, 139）.

Many examples of collage works in The Fox and

the Coal Mines （2000）　and Hiruko and the

Puppeteers : A Tale of Sea Wanderers （2009）

attest to Tomiyama’s skill in using this medium. Another example, “Shaman’s Prayer” （2002） was

created for an exhibition in Tokyo and featured in two exhibitions titled Remembrance and

Reconciliation held at the International House of Philadelphia, Ruhr University in Bohm, Germany and

later at Northwestern University in 2005 - 6. In this collage, powerful black and white images from the

artist's early lithographs form the background for fragments of printed text and the decorative Korean

style character for rei （禮）, a gesture of respect toward Korea, the land of "courtesy and respect." The

fragment of the face of a woman, taken from earlier black and white lithographs appears as a shaman

and witness, off ering prayers for Korean miners and "military comfort women" who suff ered during

the war. This shaman or mudang connects the living and the dead, the past and the present.

Techniques that Tomiyama had been developing in earlier collage works like this were again deployed

in the new series produced for the Berlin exhibit.

The fi rst three works in the new series were titled “Wars in AsiaThe Race for Colonies, “The

Road to EmpireKorea, Manchuria,” and “Puppet State Manchuria.” In “The Road to Empire,” a

reproduction of a section of an oil painting depicting the plains of Manchuria at sunset and hand made

paper form the background on which Chinese cut paper art is collaged over details from works in the

Image #1 “Shaman’s Prayer” （2002） Mixed-media collage on paper （70cm ×50cm）.

Courtesy of the artist. Photo : Kobayashi Hiromichi


series Harbin: Requiem for the 20th Century

（1995）; details used in the multi-media slide work

photographed by filmmaker, Hara Kazuo （b.

1945） form pillars at the base of the composition.

Here, Chinese folk art is juxtaposed with

fragments of earlier works on the theme of

Japan’s puppet state in Manchuria and the

colonization of Korea and refer to a time that for

Tomiyama marked the beginning of the era that

led to the “sorrows of war.”

In the next work in the series, Sending off a

Soldier , elements of the collage seem to give

shape to a fi gure that stands fi rmly at the center

of the composition. The faceless figure in a

decorated military uniform comes from earlier

works such as Spirit of Yamato （1955） and a

collage work from the Hiruko series in which “an

Asian diplomat without a head, who is dressed in

a densely embroidered Western suit, symbolizes

the collusion of the unprincipled elite with

Western powers” （Hagiwara 2010, 144）.

In this collage, along with fragments from earlier

works, we see a family of foxes surrounded by

banners inscribed with the war-time slogan hakkō

ichiu , （all the world under one roof） at the

wedding of a soldier before he is sent off to war.

Above this image of what the artist calls an era

of “fox possession,” hovers the towering, but

faceless fi gure of an imperial ruler.6

The next two collages in the series

touch on the theme of “military comfort women.”

Tomiyama juxtaposes more symbols and artifacts

Image #2 “The Road to EmpireKorea, Manchuria” （2015）

Mixed-media collage on paper（70cm × 50cm） Courtesy of the artist. Photo : Kobayashi Hiromichi

Image #3 “Sending off a Soldier”（2015） Mixed-media collage on paper（70cm ×50cm）.



of shamanism, an image from her slide works,

news clippings and fragments of photographs

documenting an installation she exhibited at the

Women’s International Tribunal on Japanese

Military Sexual Slavery held in Tokyo in 2000.

Tomiyama worked quickly on this series in the

winter of 2014; as she thought about sending the

works to Berlin, she continued to add and

juxtapose more references to the sorrows of war

in the twentieth century and included a piece

titled, “HarbinUnit 731,” a reference to the

biological warfare unit operated by the Japanese

military outside Harbin where she had lived with

her family as a school girl. In this work she also

incorporates documentary photographs that

make reference to the Nazi concentration camps

in Auschwitz, and fragments of images of barbed

wire fences and fingerprints that evoke

associations with present-day issues of migration

and border crossings.

Five of the collages in the series touch on

the title theme of sorrows in the postwar era. In

“Corporate Warriors ‘Let’s Go to Japan!”

enlarged fi ngerprints are juxtaposed with images

of paintings and prints from Tomiyama’s series,

The Thai Girl Who Never Came Home （1991）;

while touching on the theme of contemporary

women migrant workers from Southeast Asia,

the work also draws attention to the issue of both

past and present controls on cross-border

migration. Around the time when the original

series of paintings and collages was created,

Image #4 “Military Comfort Women”（2015） Mixed-media collage on paper（70cm × 50cm）


Image #5 “Harbin, Unit 731”（2015） Mixed-media collage on paper（70cm × 50cm）



Korean residents of Japan were leading a protest

movement against fingerprinting, a strict

requirement under the Alien Registration Law.

The fi nal image in the collage series is titled,

“Song of Seabirds Drowned in Oil Tip…tap…tip

…tap ‘Let us have light’.” Here, Tomiyama

takes fragments of images from earlier works

including In Toxic Seas （2008）, a large painting

from the Hiruko and the Puppeteers series

（2009）first shown at the Echigo-Tsumari Art

Triennale. On this undersea stage, towers

reminiscent of the twin towers of the World

Trade Center in New York, destroyed in the

terrorist attacks of 2001, burn as a chorus of

skeletal sea birds that drowned in oil tap on

abandoned computer keyboards. An ominous eye

（from Night of the Festival of Galungan, 1985）

looks out over the scene. Relics of modern

civilization like a computer “mother board” also

appear in his mixed-media work.

The dense arrays of images in these works

are challenging to viewers and leave them with

many questions; to untangle their multiple

meanings is on ongoing task that asks viewers to

reconsider questions of history and memory and

to ask new questions about how these things are

entangled with events that unfold before us in the

present.

In Act One of the Banned Images exhibit,

Tomiyama showed reproductions of new

paintings from Revelation from the Sea （2014),

the series of paintings and collages （and

Image #6 “Corporate Warriors‘Let’s Go to Japan!” （2015）

Mixed-media collage on paper（70cm × 50cm） Courtesy of the artist. Photo : Kobayashi Hiromichi

Image #7 “Song of Seabirds Drowned in Oil Tip…tap…tip…tap ‘Let us have light’”（2015） Mixed-media collage on paper（70cm ×50cm）.



accompanying DVD work produced

in collaboration with Takahashi

Yuji） that she created in response

to the triple disaster （earthquake,

tsunami, nuclear disaster） that

struck northeastern Japan on

March 11, 2011. Again, she chose to

make the sea the stage for her

“revelation” and reflections on

these disasters. Tomiyama began

working on large paintings in mid-

April, 2011. In the fi rst of what was

to become a series of fi ve paintings,

Revelation from the Sea: Tsunami,

guardian deities appear, riding the

waves of turbulent, dark seas

alongside burning fi res and debris

left in the wake of the tsunami. In

other paintings in the series,

Tomiyama included images of

Fujin and Raijin, the gods of wind,

and thunder and lightening, and the

skeletal remains of the Fukushima

Power Plant. Images of these

works can be seen on the website, Imagination without Borders.7

After completing the series of large paintings, Tomiyama began to learn of mutations and high

mortality rates among butterfl ies in the Fukushima region and produced an "epilogue" of nearly twenty

collages on black marbled paper like that used in her earlier series on The Fox and the Coal Mines .

Just a few of these works were shown in Berlin under the subtitle, "To the Dead Butterfl yFukushima

1- 5.”Here, images of these fragile creatures seem to float on the dark, swirling background that

reminds us of layers of geological strata and time, and the precarity of all life.

Tomiyama also heard and saw reports on the news of tanks fi lled with radiation-contaminated

Image #8 “To the Dead Butterfl y: Fukushima 4” Mixed-media collage on paper（70cm × 50cm）


Image #9 “To the Dead Butterfl y: Fukushima 5” Mixed-media collage on paper（70cm × 50cm）



waste water from the nuclear plants which prompted her to create this collage（Image #9）. The

vision of countless tanks of contaminated waste water reminded the artist of Goethe’s poem, “Der

Zauberlehring” in which a sorcerer’s apprentice attempts to use powerful magic that he doesn’t

understand and belatedly realizes the danger he has unleashed.

III. Revelation from the Sea （2014） and “Land（Sea）scapes of Emergency”

How might we view these works not only in the context of Tomiyama’s long career of producing

her own style of socially engaged art, but also in that of the emerging, interdisciplinary field of

ecocriticism which explores the relationship between art, literature and the environment? Can

Tomiyama’s recent works be compared to other works by artists and writers who are concerned with

environmental disaster or climate “emergencies” or to works of “Post-Fukushima” art and literature

which are the subject of new anthologies, exhibitions and critical cultural studies? A more thorough

inquiry into this question is beyond the scope of this essay, but I would like to end here by suggesting

one possible approach.

In an essay titled “Landscapes of Emergency” San Francisco-based writer and art critic, Rebecca

Solnit, invokes the words of pioneering environmental and anti-nuclear activist Rachel Carson, as well

as poets and philosophers in her discussion of works of contemporary art that alert us to environmental

“emergencies.” She writes:

Emergency comes from the word to emerge , which comes from the addition of e-to mergere,

which means to be within or under a liquid, immersed, submerged. An emergency is, then, an

emergence speeded up, the point at which change accelerates out of control--beyond the ability of

the system to respond. （Solnit 2003, 167）

It strikes me that Solnit’s notion of “emergency” might help shed light on images that appear in

Tomiyama’s paintings and collagesas both “landscapes （and seascapes） of emergency.” In Revelation

from the Sea , we encounter the artist’s response to a crisis that has accelerated “out of control” and a

situation that far exceeds the “ability of the system to respond.” At the same time we see that in

Tomiyama’s earlier works things that were submerged in the sea or in memory “emerge” to the

surface in the work; fi res burn unexpectedly in twin towers on the sea fl oor, and fi nally emerge to the

surface in Revelation from the Sea on dark, tumultuous waves alongside deities in the wake of a

tsunami. Within the trajectory of Tomiyama’s work, it is also no wonder that this 'revelation' from the


sea is linked to a narrative of human exploitation of natural resources that began with coal mines,

shifted to oil and then from oil to nuclear power.

As I have tried to show here, Tomiyama Taeko’s “aesthetic politics” have continued to evolve

over many decades; in the 1970s, while centering on the trope or theme of prayer, her early black and

white works can be seen in the context of reportage art that aimed to convey a direct message of

protest. In the 1980s, while developing a body of works on the theme of memory and the suppressed

histories of Korean miners and “military comfort women” she found oil painting in more nuanced

colors and tones as well as the metaphor of the mudang or shaman to be more suitable tools of

expression. In the new millennium, as seen in Hiruko and the Puppeteers, the scale of the works has

continued to expand both in terms of time and geography; in Revelation from the Sea, we can recognize

“landscapes （and seascapes） of emergency,” post-human existence, and nuclear time. Elements and

themes that appear in all of these works are incorporated into the collage series, “Sorrows of War and

the ‘Postwar’ EraWhat a Woman Artist Saw.”

Late in 2016, Tomiyama’s most recent series, Owari no Hajimari, Hajimari no Owari （Beginning

of the End, End of the Beginning） was exhibited in conjunction with the annual “Anti-nuclear, Anti-war

Exhibit” at the Maruki Museum in Saitama, Japan; she currently is hoping to complete a DVD work

based on this series in collaboration with Takahashi Yuji. At the same time, preparations are underway

for a retrospective exhibition of Tomiyama’s work at Yonsei University in Seoul in 2020, the 40th

anniversary of the Gwangju uprising and the 45th anniversary of the founding of Hidane Kobo.

In this essay, I have also tried to suggest that this body of work deserves renewed attention in

the context of recent discourse and research on “socially engaged” art and the emerging

interdisciplinary fi eld of ecocriticism. In 2019, thanks to support from Kyoto Seika University, Tama

University Art Museum, and Voyager Japan Inc., two public events were held, a seminar at Kyoto

Academia Forum in Tokyo, and an exhibition and seminar held at Fujino Club in Kanagawa Prefecture.

At a time when ‘postcolonial’ issues continue to resurface in the East Asian region and as both man-

made and natural disasters are on the rise all around the globe, Tomiyama Taeko’s works will continue

to be a catalyst for dialogue as we reflect on the past and try to move forward in the face of an

uncertain future. With thanks to Tomiyama Taeko and Kobayashi Hiromichi for permission to use the

images and photos, and to Sakamoto Hiroko and Rebecca Copeland for their helpful and generous

comments on drafts of this paper.


Works Cited:

Denitto, Laura, 2019. Fukushima Fiction. Honolulu , HI: University of Hawaii Press.

Hagiwara Hiroko, 1993. “Off the Comprador’s Ladder” in Disrupted Borders: An interventions in

defi nitions of boundaries, edited by Sunil Gupta, 55-69. London, Rivers Oram Press.

,2010. “Working on and off the Margins.” In Imagination without Borders: Feminist Artist

Tomiyama Taeko and Social Responsibility, edited by Laura Hein and Rebecca Jennison, 129-147.

Ann Arbor, MI : Center for Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan.

Han, Nataly Jung-Hwa, Tsukasa Yajima and Jae-hyun Yoo. 2015. Verbotene Bilder : Zensur und

Kontrolle in den Demokratien Ostasiens/Banned Images : Control and Censorship in East Asian

Democracies. Berlin : ngbk （neue Gesellschaftfur bildende Kunst）.

Hein, Laura and Rebecca Jennison. 2010. Imagination Without Border : Feminist Artist Tomiyama

Taeko and Social Responsibility. Center for Japan Studies, Michigan University Press, Ann Arbor,

MI. （Also see related website: https://imaginationwithoutborders.northwestern.edu/

Jesty, Justin. 2017.“Japan’s Social Turn.” In Field: A Journal of Socially Engaged Art, vol. 7. http://

fi eld-journal.com/category/issue-7

, 2018. Art and Engagement.in Early Postwar Japan. Ithaca, NY. Cornell University Press.

Kitagawa Furam, 1998. “Introduction.” In From the Asians: Tomiyama Taeko Hong Sung-Dam, 4-6.

Edited by Acting Committee of “Synergy of Soul : /5・18 Foundation. Tokyo : Tama Art University.

Kobayashi Hiromichi, 2001. “Kaiga kara suraido he/From Painting to Slides.” In SLIDES, translated by

Rebecca Jennison, 1. Tokyo: Hidane Kobo.

, 2009. “Slides and Collages,” in Hiruko and the Puppeteers: A Tale of Sea Wanderers, translated

by Rebecca Jennison, 10-11. Tokyo: Gendai Kikakushitsu.

Solnit, Rebecca. 2003. “Landscapes of Emergency.” In As Eve Said to the Serpent : On Landscape

Gender and Art, 160-177. Athens GA: University of Georgia Press.

Takahashi Yuji. 2001.“Suraido to ongaku/Slides and Music.” In SLIDES, translation by Rebecca

Jennison, 4-5. Tokyo: Hidane Kobo.

Tikhonov, Vladimir. 2015. “Modern East Asia and the Freedom of Expression.” In Verbotene Bilder :

Zensur und Kontrolle in den Demokratien Ostasiens/Banned Images : Control and Censorship in

East Asian Democracies, 13 -15. Berlin : ngbk .

Tomiyama Taeko. 1995. Silenced by History : Tomiyama Taeko’s Work. Edited by ‘Ajia e no shiza to

hyogen’ Organizing Committee. Tokyo : Gendai Kikakushitsu.

2001. “Memory and Narrative.” In SLIDES, translated by Rebecca Jennison, Tokyo : Hidane Kobo.


2009. Hiruko and the Puppeteers: A Tale of Sea Wanderers. （Bilingual book and DVD, translated

by Rebecca Jennison. Tokyo: Gendai Kikakushitsu.

2015. “From the Life of a Woman Artist” In Verbotene Bilder/Banned Images, 51-56. Berlin: ngbk.

2020. Seas of Memory: Prayer, Memory, Revelation. DVD of three works created in collaboration

with Takahashi Yuji. Tokyo : Voyager Japan, Inc.

Yamamoto Hiroki. 2019. “Decolonial Possibilities of Transnationalism in Contemporary Zainichi Korean

Art,” in Situations: Cultural Studies in the Asian Context, 12.1, 107-128. Seoul: Yonsei University.

http://situations.yonsei.ac.kr/product/data/item/1553949880/detail/0bdb 035e13. pdf Accessed Jan.

6, 2020.

, 2019. Gendai Bijutsushi: Oubei, nihon, toransunashionaru. Tokyo : Chuo Koron Shinsha.

Zohar, Ayelet. 2015. “Beyond Hiroshima : The Return of the Repressed, Wartime Memory,

Performativity and the Documentary in Contemporary Japanese Photography and Video Art,”in

Beyond Hiroshima: The Return of the Repressed, Wartime Memory, Performativity and the

Documentary in Contemporary Japanese Photography and Video Art, 11-25. Tel Aviv, Israel :

Genia Schreiber Art Gallery.

Endnotes :

１ Zohar, Ayelet. Catalogue essay for the exhibition, Beyond Hiroshima: The Return of the Repressed:

Wartime Memory, Performativity, and the Documentary in Contemporary Japanese Photography

and Video Art. Tel Aviv : Genia Schreiber Art Gallery.

２ See Hidane Kobo Newsletter, 2010 for selected news articles and reviews of the exhibition.

３ See Field, A Journal of Socially Engaged Art Criticism, Issue #7, Japan’s Social Turn, Vol. 1, 2017.

http://fi eld-journal.com/category/issue-7（accessed Jan. 4, 2020）

４ Seas of Memory: Prayer, Memory and Revelation, Voyager Inc, 2020. See also “Imagination without

Borders” for an introduction of Tomiyama’s works.（http://imaginationwithoutborders.

northwestern.edu/index.html）.

５ Excerpts from Takahashi’s essay in “Slides” will be reprinted with the revised and updated

versions of the DVD.

６ The original oil painting seen at the center in the lower half of the composition is in the collection of

Kyoto Seika University.

７ See, Imagination without Borders website. （accessed Jan. 5, 2020）

https://imaginationwithoutborders.northwestern.edu/collections/revelation/

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