Jam Session: The Ishibashi Foundation Collection × YAMASHIRO Chikako × SHIGA Lieko

In the midst of

The Artizon Museum’s Jam Session series fosters new expression by pairing contemporary artists with works from the Ishibashi Foundation Collection. This sixth installment of the series features Yamashiro Chikako and Shiga Lieko whose works, though rooted in vastly different geographic regions – Okinawa for Yamashiro and Tohoku for Shiga – engage themes of history and memory.

In recent years, localized social change and natural disasters have amplified differences in regional and cultural experience, prompting once shared memories to fade. In Japan, what was an almost imperceptible divide between center and periphery has widened with diminished memory over time of World War II and the Battle of Okinawa, for example, or of natural disasters and earthquakes such as the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011. This situation provides the context for the examination and re-evaluation of the themes of “center and periphery” and “place and memory” in the In the midst of exhibition.

In our “post-truth” era of blurred facts and information overload, how can the past be understood? Yamashiro and Shiga confront history and memory directly and viscerally in their art. Their works are powerful appeals to action that rouse viewers to re-examine their own views and accepted perspectives and narratives. Yamashiro and Shiga’s new works created in dialog with the Ishibashi Foundation Collection offer an opportunity to reconsider our own views on complex and difficult realities as we contemplate the power of art.