Disruptive Landscapes: Contemporary Art From Japan

Groundbreaking video artists from Japan feature in a major new exhibition at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna O Waiwhetū.

How do politics influence the ways we relate to our natural surroundings, and how do artists make landscapes that reflect who we are? What myths and memories do we project onto the land?

Significant works from eight Japanese artists who explore these themes will be shown in Disruptive Landscapes: Contemporary art from Japan, which opens on Saturday 12 April.

Curator Melanie Oliver selected the works during two research trips, made possible thanks to the Asia New Zealand Foundation and Ishibashi Foundation.

“I was impressed with the quietly powerful works being made currently, and this selection includes some of the best contemporary Japanese artists working at the moment. The works address topics current to Japan, from biodiversity to sexuality and technology, but many also explore universal themes and issues that resonate with our local context in Aotearoa and Ōtautahi,” Ms Oliver says.

The works can loosely be seen to have evolved from ideas in Japanese landscape theory, which emerged in the 1970s with a groundbreaking art film, AKA Serial Killer, that is being shown at the Gallery’s Philip Carter Family Auditorium in May.

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The cult film anchors its portrayal of serial killer Norio Nagayama within the landscape of Japan’s social and political upheaval in the 1960s, humanising Nagayama and suggesting that harmful environmental factors played a crucial role in shaping him.

“Similarly, the artists featured in the exhibition disrupt the traditional viewpoint of landscape, suggesting more diverse social, cultural and political perspectives,” Ms Oliver says.

“When I saw Jinushi Maiko’s A Distant Duet in Tokyo, it really drew me in, and I stayed for the full 40-minute duration of the work because it opened up so much for me about Japanese culture, offering a contemporary way of reflecting on difficult histories.”

The film examines embedded cultural mindsets of Japan in contrast to Spain. To illustrate this, Jinushi draws from writings about a true story where Spanish people earnestly tried to save a young boy who fell down a hole – the story acts as a framing device for her theory that if the same tragedy happened in Japan, people would intentionally forget about the hole they had seen.

“Through A Distant Duet, Jinushi considers the sociopolitical landscape of Japan in the wake of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, offering poetic insight that encourages audiences to think about our own approach to difficult events, trauma and loss – our holes and blind spots,” Ms Oliver says.

Another engaging work, Prometheus the Firebringer, is part three in a Virtual Reality (VR) series by Koizumi Meiro, who is travelling to Aotearoa for the exhibition.

Koizumi uses the myth of Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods and gave it to humanity, to explore the tension between humans, nature and technology. The VR projection envelopes the viewer in the work while investigating how humans could become entirely different beings through a small bio-technological operation.

“Like many of the works, there’s a poetic tone to it, and an immersive quality that is subtle and gentle – it’s exciting to work with an artist utilising this technology for unique and engaging storytelling,” Ms Oliver says.

“A common method of Japanese moving image is non-linear narratives. This allows you to enter the work at any time, catching part or all of it from that point, and bringing your own reading to the story.”

A still-image lightbox installation is also included in the show. “Your Moon” by Atushi Watanabe brings together photographs of the moon shared by people experiencing loneliness, or hikikomori. It could be that they’ve withdrawn from society, as he once did, or are isolated for reasons outside of their control, including by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The moon becomes a symbol for both our collective and individual experience of loneliness – we can look up at the sky at see the same moon, yet from our unique position,” Ms Oliver says.

The exhibition will be the first show in Aotearoa of contemporary Japanese art in 20 years.

“Whatever your experience of Japanese culture, it’s a great opportunity to learn more and see something new, current and potentially challenging.”

Disruptive Landscapes: Contemporary art in Japan opens on Saturday 12 April with an artist talk featuring Koizumi Meiro. The exhibition closes on 24 August 2025.

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