<essays> Chisai in 2024 (1)
Long time no see! Actually Chisai forgot to write the Substack. Ah, it was in February when she updated the last time?! Today let's read her story from February until helping the exhibition in spring.
Hi, this is Chisai. You said, “how are you?”, of course, “I’m fine, thank you”, like English textbook. But I am becoming more and more strange, you have never seen such a person. Monster? Hahaha, YES!
One day in February or March, I received a message from a curator from Kitakyushu, Japan. She wrote, "I want to schedule during Golden Week". Golden Week in Japan is about ten days from the end of April to May. At first, I thought it was the wrong message. But it was not. I remembered, when I met her last fall, I said, "It's been 10 years since artist Osamu Kokufu died".
About Osamu Kokufu
Just then, it was decided that I would make a research presentation. Around the end of 2022, I watched the "Public History" symposium in Zoom. After I gave questions to a Japanese researcher in England, she invited me to the Public History Study Group in Japan. This group would have the fifth anniversary conference in Tokyo and looked for presenters. I applied and passed it, (un)fortunately I was the last presenter on the program.
What is “Public History”? Nowadays, history has many new thoughts. One of them is not only "xxx happened in XXXX". “Public History” has two meanings; one is history for the public. For example, we know of one station that was recently rebuilt. I say, "it was wooden", you say, "yes, it was a nice wooden building". We understand it is for the public, so we can share history with the public. Another one is "not special". I say, "it was wooden", you are not a specialist, but you can say, "because it was the 18th century when it was built...". Because the history is for everyone = public.
But I couldn't understand art in Taiwan for ten years. Some artists in Taiwan describe the Japanese colonial era. Not only me, but Japanese people also don't know past history, so we don't understand artworks in Taiwan. Japanese only say, "wow, colorful!" and "oh, cute!". ---No, I am different from them! During Covid era, I studied languages, history, geography and background in Taiwan. But they said, "this story is history in the Japanese colonial era, you are Japanese, you know well, right?" Then my presentation concept is "What is public history?" and the title is "Re-acknowledgement of “Japanese Colonial Era” ‐ Look at three artworks of Taiwanese artist Ting Chaong-Wen".
I think, public has three points; (1) thing, (2) place, and (3) person. Ting used them too. My presentation is very fine!! Because almost researchers don’t know Asia and Taiwan. So they thought “what is public”. If you want to know my presentation, I can send summary (in English, Chinese and Japanese).
After it, I started to help the exhibition “ten years after Osamu Kokufu’s death”. I sent many messages to curator, but she didn’t reply to them. While I waited for her, I contacted Kokufu’s family and told them what artworks I could borrow. Kokufu is a sculptor, but Most of his sculptures were not now. If it were, it is very heavy and large, so it is difficult to show in this exhibition. One day, the curator replied, “drawings are best!!”. Yes, it is rare to see his drawings.
In April, Curator, Kokufu's family and I decided the title of the exhibition and so on. This preparation started suddenly for me, but it turned out to be a very wonderful exhibition. Besides the exhibition, Kenji Yanobe, who is Kokufu's senior in the university and a famous artist in Japan, gave a lecture on his memories. It was just the anniversary of his death, so I was really moved.
Website of the Exhibition "Reminiscences about ‘Car Tower’ - Ten Years After The Loss of Osamu Kokufu”
In fact, I applied for a paper while preparing for the exhibition…. See you next time!