Day 27 features Midori Mitamura, Artist, who is exhibiting her work in Block C of the Nara Prison Museum.
I create spaces using motifs of old photographs, furniture, and the personal memories layered upon them, which allows visitors to feel a certain nostalgia or affinity. When I received the offer for the exhibition in Block C and visited the site, I was overwhelmed by the unique atmosphere of the place. Learning that many photographs from the juvenile prison era remained there, I decided to create a room where afterimages of memory appear by combining photos of the Showa-era juvenile prison with old furniture and family photos remaining in my childhood home. As the time of the people who lived in the prison and the time of my family who lived through the same era overlap, the boundaries between past and present, others and self, and inside and outside blur and dissolve.
The people who once spent time in the juvenile prison must have also repeatedly experienced encounters and departures, stepping out onto their respective paths. Time flows equally in any place or circumstance, and there is no time that does not pass. By reflecting on the momentary brilliance of ceaseless time in this space, the prison, which may have felt like a distant existence, might start to feel a little more familiar.
Known for her installations where spaces built on her own memories using various materials like photos, videos, furniture, and daily items eventually transform into spaces of universal memory accompanied by nostalgia, Midori Mitamura has presented works globally, including at Aichi Triennale 2016 and Setouchi International Art Festival 2022. At the Nara Prison Museum, her work titled “A Room Where Things Pass” is exhibited in Block C.
Follow the series on Instagram: “The Exquisite Prison and the 30”
