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I created this work through my in-advance writing, research and interviews I conducted in May 25-27 2022 on the Burano Island with the six remaining Maestre Merlettaie (lace makers) at Museo del Merletto di Burano, and in Venice at Tessitura Luigi Bevilacqua and Fondazione Rubelli, and through rehearsals at Sara Armi E at the Venice Biennale in Arsenale and the outdoor site Campo Santo Stefano from June 11 2022 until June 25 2022, working together with the artistic directors Stefano Ricci and Gianni Forte, assistant Rob Van Den Berg, and staff member Elena Leonardi at the Venice Biennale.
This story-making started from my two questions. My peace politics, peace article 9 of the Constitution of Japan, relates to both of my background countries, Japan and the U.S. I wished to make this concept into my peace Poetics instead of the politics. Can listening of multiple delicate stories be a poetic approach to coexistence?
Another question arose from the novels Under the Cherry Trees (1928) by Motojiro Kajii, which starts, “there is a dead body under a cherry tree,” and In the Forest, Under Cherries in Full Bloom (1947) by Ango Sakaguchi. I learned about ifu-no-bi, fearful beauty from these novels as I grew up. I was however shocked to know that Sakaguchi wrote the novel after looking at and experiencing the war, dead bodies, and the cherry trees in full above them.
What does it mean for me to realize my peace poetics through art which often has dramas and tragedy? Can we see and listen to the intensity that already exists under an unnamed flower and in our everyday stories and make it our brake so that we can choose peace?
The work has become a place for feelings, memories in bodies, families, an apple, and listening. I also address objectification of bodies (“Orientale? Oggetti per chi? (Objects for who?)”) in Venice, which also is seen as a tourist site while there are everyday unseen stories. I point to the highly complex power and political structure of this world, in which we are all in, through gestures of seemingly non-political hands. I nevertheless focused, through my performances, on mending, mourning, and sharing of the space about memories, breathing, feelings, and peace.