Press

「心の装い奔放に着せ替え・道行く人と顔出し写真で触れ合い」

• 日本経済新聞　1997年 3月3日
• 日本経済新聞

"Changing Your Idea about Art Is about as Easy as Changing Ones Dress"

• Nihon Keizai Shinbun newspaper, March 3
• Nihon Keizai Shinbun newspaper

Nihon Keizai Shinbun, News Paper, 3rd March, 1997

--Culture--"Change Ideas Like Changing Clothes"
　　　　　　　　　　　 written by Rica Takashima
I call it "Kaodashi-kun (peek-a-boo board)." It is a human figure in a various costumes and it has a hole in its head so you can put your face in, as seen at tourist sites.

I started art activities using "Kaodashi-kun" 3 years ago. After graduating from National Tokyo University of Arts, I worked as an illustrator for a while. But, I wanted to communicate more with people and the community by means of art somehow, so I started art performances in Harajuku pedestrian mall downtown in 1994, which has been closed since 1996. The idea of using "Kaodashi-kun" came out then, to get people passing by to join the performances.
Let me describe some of the projects I've done so far.

--Order Made Family--
1994 was the year of the International Family. So, I planned "Order Made Family" using "Kaodashi-kun (peek-a-boo board)" for the first time. I made over 20 Kaodashi-kun boards: such as Father, Mother, Granma, Granpa, Pet, Lover, Friend, An American guy, Korean girl, of various ages, sexes, races and nationalities. I took these Kaodashi-kun boards to Harajuku pedestrian mall, and let people choose and invent their own family. I took their pictures with an instant photo camera. Thanks to support from a film manufacturing company, I was able to give away those pictures on decorated sheets.

800 people joined during one week, and their responses were very interesting. Most people chose Granma or Granpa, which shows they wanted a big family that is now rare in Japan.
While elderly people tend to follow their real family, young males tend to choose "Myself, Lover and Pet."

10-year-old girl said "If my friend was a member of family, I could play with him/her anytime."
A housewife in her 50's said, "It's strange to think of being family with various foreign people.

--Street Ceremony--
In March 1995, I did "Street Ceremony" in accordance with the graduation season in Japan.
Letting people make a resolution, I took instant photos of them and pasted in certificate style sheets. A 3-year-old girl made a resolution that she would stop getting breast-fed.

After the closing of Harajuku pedestrian mall, I moved to a corporate museum, Fujita Vente, in Yoyogi.
The first event I held at the museum was "Love Love Ceremony" at which people get married.

The Kaodashi-kun boards I prepared for this event were wearing traditional foreign costumes, swim suits, not limited to stereotypes. The participants could be 2, 3 or more.
Witnesses played music at the ceremony, and pictures were taken by a digital camera and were uploaded on the internet instantly expecting congratulations from all over the world.

"Married" people had to decide their family name, to which I gave interesting insight.
Heterosexual couples mostly took over their husband's last names, while female friends combined their last names. Some couples even took a name from a cartoon.

Of course this idea is impractical in the real world, and I've got some responses expressing unpleasant feelings and complaining it is unethical. But I only wanted to give an occasion to think flexibly, and if the people reflected about stereotypes, my trial succeeded.

--Feeling Much Better in Cartoon--
The latest event was "Feeling Much Better on Cartoon" at Fujita Vente Museum, Yoyogi. Sometimes it's difficult to make an apology. This event was planned to be an occasion to release such guilty feelings. People wrote down their apologies in a dialogue balloon and I drew their faces on pre-produced cartoon sheets. Instant pictures were taken and given away with the sheets.

All the pictures and decorated sheets used in the events were given away for free. Actually I'm investing most of my savings on these events, but I would never stop doing this, because I already learned the happiness gained by communicate with many people directly through art.