IF ALL ELSE FAILS, WILL WE DREAM OF FLOWERS?
もし、全てがダメになっても、花を夢見てもいいのかしら？

This exhibition brings together a series of works made in different media and based on my experiences and actions in and around Yokohama and Tokyo this year. At the centerpiece of the exhibition is a flower torch relay performance which weaves together real memories and facts with fantasy and parallel realities. The work questions notions of identity, and the challenges brought about through changing cultural, situational and locational contexts under the current global backdrop. It is also a celebration that is sometimes funny, sometimes sad, and often hopefully hopeless.

この展覧会では今年の東京と横浜の経験とアクションに基づいた様々なメディアで作られた作品シリーズを発表します。展示の中心に記憶と事実、ファンタジーと並行現実を編む生花リレーという花を使う聖火トーチリレーのパフォーマンスがあります。作品を通してアイデンティティーや今の世界の背景で変化しつつある状況、文化、環境、によって構築された文脈や挑戦に対して問いをかける。同時に時におかしく時に悲しくどうにもならない望みに満ちる展示になっています。

Descriptive Introduction:

I move masked through the city, with its various landmarks, and spiring towers, gateways, streets and crosswalks. Through parks, and across bridges spanning rivers swayed by the whimsy of the  fathomless sea beyond; whose tides skirt translocated horizon lines that reach out to embrace the shadows of distant continents like an afterthought of a lover’s touch.

I go past the silent Olympic stadium and Olympic monuments. Are we in 2020 as all the signs would have you believe? Frozen. Or is it 2021 as we thought we knew it to be? Now I’m not so sure. Dizzy, disorientated. Have we travelled back in time? Games and glory, a golden haze of 1964 Olympic déjà vu?

I visit the empty lot where my father’s and grandparents’ house once stood. Now it is a grassy patch overshadowed by the forest of the mountain overhead and a nightingale’s lament. I go outside my apartment and walk around downtown Yokohama and out to the port.

This was more a compulsion than anything. Cherry blossoms were flowering in Tokyo. My recollections resurfacing, teenage athletic memories from that vast southern continent I still know. Here, a torch forged in metal from my namesake’s flower, seemingly out of reach then suddenly appearing.

What is real and what is an illusion cast by the shadow of the mind’s eye?
Natural or man-made?

I run with a torch of many flowers from one side of the city to the other – the sun rises and sets. Has anything changed? Have I changed or is it only your perception that has slipped? Glitches in time, space, body and mind.

An inconceivable pandemic is happening. At the same time I’m feeling many life pressures, based on being here, based on being a woman. It is easy to feel a little helpless, a little lost, a little sad, and a little crazy amongst all of these outside and inside forces. Trying to stay afloat, flapping, failing drastically at the same time. Trying to laugh but crying at the same time.

Does it really matter when there are much larger powers at play? Everyone says the earth is changing.

Imagine if sentient beings in outer space could see us, celebrating our small victories each day, while at the same time dancing a perilous Damocles dance through the forest, across thin ice.

If all else fails, will we dream of flowers?

Sakura Alice – Biography /さくらアリスバイオグラフィー

Born in Perth, Western Australia. Received her Bachelor of Visual Arts from the School of Art, Australian National University including a year spent studying abroad at Kyoto Seika University. Completed a Master of Fine Art at Tama Art University, Tokyo, Japan. In recent years has participated in the Koganecho artist in residence program and has been especially active in and around the Tokyo and Yokohama area.
Works in a range of different media including painting, video, performance, mixed media and installation. She has also expanded her practice to include the implementation of participatory events and interactive performances. She is influenced by her experiences and surroundings as well as the challenges brought about through contextual changes of environment, culture and language. She is currently based in Yokohama and Tokyo, Japan. 

西オーストラリア州、パース市生まれ。京都精華大学交換留学一年間を含む、オーストラリア国立大学美術学科絵画専攻卒業。多摩美術大学大学院絵画専攻修士課程卒業。近年は黄金町AIRに参加し、主に東京と横浜周辺に活躍。
絵画、映像、パフォーマンス、ミックストメディア、インスタレーション、参加型イベントなど様々な表現を行う。過ぎ去った経験や周りの環境から影響を受け、異なるコンテクストから生じるズレなどを表現する。