ARATANIURANO's artist Tadasu Takamine will be participating in an upcoming group show 'Japan Syndrome' in Berlin.

Three years after the tsunami in northeastern Japan and the damage to the nuclear reactor in Fukushima, many people, including a growing number of artists, have got beyond the agony and speechlessness that set in after the disaster. They are starting to recognize that the catastrophe uncovered many hitherto undisclosed rifts within Japanese society, and made it possible to describe the myths of the post-war period, the belief in unrestricted economic growth through cheap energy and in the ability to control nature and technology, as an existential threat to the population. 

The festival Japan Syndrome lasts for ten days and considers the question of how Japanese society and the language of art have changed since the events of March 11, 2011. Theatre artists such as Toshiki Okada, Akira Takayama and Takuya Murakawa, visual artists such as Tadasu Takamine or Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani and musicians such as Toni Kudo, the band Sangatsu and documentary filmmaker Hikaru Fujii will present new works in this framework, of which some are being created in close cooperation with HAU Hebbel am Ufer. 

The video “Japan Syndrome” brings together a series of theatrical re-enactments. They are based on real encounters and dialogues in supermarkets. This question at hand is whether the products on offer have been exposed to radiation. In parallel, Tadasu Takamine shows an installation entitled “Nuclear Family.” A chronicle of atom bomb tests is juxtaposed in time with images from his family’s photo album. 

*image (left)
Tadasu Takamine 
Japan Syndrome Mito version (reference image)
video
courtesy of the artist and Art Tower Mito