Dig Your Dreams.
Dig Your Dreams., 2019
Photo: Takeshi Hirabayashi
The floor of the venue of this exhibition in a vacant shop space has been dug up, giving the place the appearance of an excavation site. The hole in the ground has the shape of the company logo of Toyota Motor Corp. Various pieces of earthenware, junk, and other objects are exhibited in glass cases to look like excavated articles that have been dug up here, accompanied by projections of video footage of a workshop, filmed with surveillance cameras that were installed at the venue. The participants in the workshop are citizens of Toyota City. The cameras remain at the venue for the duration of the exhibition, and continue to capture the scenery in real-time images shown on a monitor. Another monitor, divided into four segments like that showing the surveillance camera footage, shows images of Toyota City in the past, documenting the various transformations the city has gone through up to today.
During his research in the area, the artist found out that there were actually very few logos and advertisements related to Toyota Motor Corp. in the streets of Toyota City, the biggest company town in Japan. Nonetheless, Toyota Motor Corp. would always crop up in one way or another when doing further research into the town's history, economy, and the local people's lifestyles, which eventually inspired the artist to dig further into the matter through this work.
tomotosi
- Born 1983 in Yamaguchi
- Based in Tokyo
tomotosi studied architectural engineering at Toyohashi University of Technology, and attended the Genron Chaos*Lounge New Art School. He applies an exquisitely balanced approach to his photography, video, and installations, which focus on the imperfection of cities. He is known for works that reveal the hidden interstices of the city, and that involve taking new actions which break unwritten social rules. For Buying a 7-Eleven at 7-Eleven, the artist photographed a 7-Eleven store opposite a gallery where he was exhibiting work and "copied and pasted" it onto the outside of the gallery (this was all done with the store's printing services, and stationery bought there). By showing society's reactions of acceptance or rejection of the sense of incongruity that he brings about, tomotosi presents alternative relationships between people and their city.
Selected Works & Awards
| 2018 | tttv(solo), chuohonsengarou, Tokyo, Japan |
| 2017 | DailyPortalZ the Rookie of the Year Award, Second prize |
| 2016 | WIRED CREATIVE HACK AWARD 2016, Finalist |
Map
Underneath Meitetsu Toyotashi Station
Address
Open
Admission until
15 minutes
before closing
Closed
Access
・Soon reached on foot from Toyota-shi Bus Stop on the Meitetsu Bus.