WE'RE HEADING TO A PLACE WHERE NOBODY WANTS TO GO BY THE WILL OF ALL

OPENING:
Friday, March 31, 2017, 6 pm

EXHIBITION DATA:
March 31 to April 28, 2017


1335MABINI proudly presents Yoshinori Niwa in a solo exhibition titled “We‘re heading to a place  where nobody wants to go by the will of all“ from March 31 to April 28, 2017.

The exhibition primarily features two of Niwa‘s recent videos: The Younger Ones Educate the Older Ones and Paying A Courtesy Call  on the Incumbent Mayor by All His Predecessors in History, both produced in 2016. 

In The Younger Ones Educate the Older Ones, Yoshinori Niwa‘s proposal was to reverse the position of teachers and students at school so that they play the opposite role, making them suffer with what they normally cannot experience from their usual viewpoint.  This action functions to examine the issue of institutionalized education and the importance of accumulation of knowledge by human beings.In this project, Niwa had proposed an illogical workshop that examines the possibility of the concept of education itself, and explores if and how a person can educate others via taping the meeting in which the artist gave the proposal to the local board of education at the beginning of the video. For many reasons, however, the board refused to allow the workshop to move forward, but the process of that negotiation were all recorded by video camera, and then the high school theatrical club reproduced the negotiation with continuations of the actual events into a fictional play.

Meanwhile, Paying A Courtesy Call on the Incumbent Mayor by All His Predecessors in History is a creative documentary project using real mediums, psychics and Itako from across Japan to summon the ghosts of 16 generations of Naoshima (in Japan) mayors to pay a courtesy call on the current mayor. The film follows all the process of the project from the very beginning such as negotiation with a bereaved family of past mayors, and also negotiation with mediums, and also the current mayor. The video image changes by the minute change into 9 separated channel stories from moment to moment, but to be integrated at the end. Audience can view a video of the ghosts talking about happenings during their time in the post, as well as recreations of their press conferences. The project reflects on the island’s history and the irreversibility of time.