8/3 – 8/25「Fireworks or Bombing?」Exhibition: Kyoko Ebata／REKREATIF

〜exhibition of gallery annexed to cafe〜

monade contemporary｜単子現代
August 3 (Sat) – 25 (Sun), 2024｜Thu, Fri, Sat, Sun 14:00-19:00
Opening reception: August 3 (Sat), 19:00-21:00
Talk Event: August 4 (Sun), 14:00 – 15:00 Guest: Zoe Yeh (Director of Hong-gah Museum) ※Online

〈Statement〉
While the price of a rice ball has risen from 100 to 125 yen and we are busy surviving our daily lives, wars have been going on somewhere in the world since the beginning of history. Are wars started to protect our loved ones?

Media wars that fuel insecurity. In the midst of the confusion between the real and the virtual, I had to do something, even if it is a tiny action. So one day I have decided to go to Taiwan where there is a lot of concern about the Chinese unification of Taiwan.

To be able to wash the Japanese flag in a laundrette and talk about the past and future wars, which are difficult to talk about, even a little, with strangers passing by is “normal”, which may be a very peaceful situation. I would like to cherish this state.

― Kyoko Ebata

〈Exhibition Information〉
monade contemporary | 単子現代 is pleased to present “Fireworks or Bombing?” a group exhibition by KYOKO EBATA and REKREATIF.

Kyoko Ebata has explored the loneliness and violence surrounding people’s lives and deaths through exhibitions of her photographs taken inside the homes of elderly people in various countries around the world, as well as photography workshops for young people in East Timor. More recently, she has been engaged in the process of opening her home to the public as a space for living with others and collaborating in the production of artworks, while searching for a new mode of life and death or community for survival and living in relation to the nation, region, individual, and nature.

The exhibition includes a video work (2024) of Ebata’s performance in Taiwan, where she repeatedly selected, dried, ironed, and folded the Japanese flag at a laundromat in the city, while interviewing people from various walks of life; photographs of rival street gangs or friends performing martial arts matches realized and shot in East Timor by the young photographer group REKREATIF (2021); and street photographs of lovers taken in various locations by Ebata (2024).

The feelings of helplessness in speaking something while carrying the history of aggression, the violence that confronts people who hate or admire each other, and the sensation of fear that wavers between two people seeking to love each other. When fireworks launched into the air become bombs and fall on people, and when bombs dropped into the air become fireworks that arouse people’s exultation, one might see the tipping point of love into violence.

Confronted with great power, or a regime of force, how can nations or people face and seek each other beyond their circumstances? Please join us in a drama of irony where conflict and reconciliation, encounter and collision, longing and hesitation are woven over nations and people.

〈Artist〉
Kyoko Ebata　http://kyokoebata.com/
Born in Tokyo. Studied in Geneva, Oxford and London for high schools and university. BA Art and Art History, Goldsmiths’ College, University of London.

Talk Event Guest: Zoe Yeh (Director of Hong-gah Museum)
Born in 1985. Graduated from National Taipei University of Arts in 2012. Director of Hong-gah Museum.