Description

NOTE: This event consisted of three components: (1) Photo Exhibitions –  March 4 to April 14; (2) A Body in a Library Performance by Eiko Otake – March 15; (3) Video Screening and Symposium – March 16. All three were free of charge. Registration was required ONLY for the the third part – Video Screening and Symposium.  

This was a multi-sited, multi-media, and multi-disciplinary event that demonstrated how art can contribute to critical reflection on the nuclearization of everyday life in our contemporary world. Since 2014 Eiko Otake and William Johnston have photographed the performer among the ruins and abandoned places that have been left in the aftermath of the nuclear catastrophe of March 2011. Following a magnitude 9 earthquake off the coast of Northeastern Japan, a massive tsunami inundated reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Plant, resulting in meltdowns in three reactors. The Fukushima disaster is regarded as the second largest nuclear accident in history, and yet its full consequences remain temporally and spatially boundless and ultimately unknowable — a reality that Otake’s haunting bodily performances and Johnston’s striking photography make so compelling.  Otake’s and Johnston’s collaborative work on Fukushima has been exhibited in major venues across the Americas and appears in Canada for the first time.   

Otake is a world-renowned, movement-based artist who performed as Eiko and Koma for more than forty years before beginning her solo performances for the project, A Body in Places. Her awards include a Guggenheim, MacArthur, Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award, and Dance Magazine Award for lifetime achievement. William Johnston is a photographer and historian whose critically acclaimed written work and photography have focused on issues of the body, sexuality, disease, the environment, and public health. The symposium accompanying the exhibitions and performancel featured presentations by leading scholars and artists working across disciplines.  

PHOTO EXHIBITIONS DATES: March 4 – April 14, 2019 (depending on the library hours) LOCATIONS:  Robarts Library, 130 St. George Street, Toronto, ON 1st floor exhibition area,and 8th floor, Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge St., Toronto, ON 3rd and 5th floors  CURATORS:  Takashi Fujitani, Director, Dr. David Chu Program in Asia Pacific Studies Henry Heng Lu, Independent Curator and Founder, Call Again    

A BODY IN A LIBRARY PERFORMANCE BY EIKO OTAKE DATE: Friday, March 15, 5:15 – 7:00 PM LOCATION: Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge Street, Toronto, ON   VIDEO SCREENING AND SYMPOSIUM * Registration was required * DATE: Saturday, March 16, 1:00 – 5:00 PM, followed by reception LOCATION: Innis Town Hall, Innis College, 2 Sussex Ave., Toronto, ON SYMPOSIUM PARTICIPANTS: Eiko Otake, Independent movement-based performance artist William Johnston, Department of History, Wesleyan University  CHAIR Takashi Fujitani, Department of History and Dr. David Chu Program in Asia-Pacific Studies,  University of Toronto PANELISTS Marilyn Ivy, Department of Anthropology, Columbia University Photography and 3.11, with a meditation on William Johnston’s photographs of Eiko Otake in Fukushima Katy McCormick, School of Image Arts, Ryerson University Searching for A Body, Finding Trees Lisa Yoneyama, Women and Gender Studies Institute and Department of East Asian Studies, University of Toronto Post-Fukushima Epistemology Tong Lam, Department of History, University of Toronto Fallout, promise! Some reflections on pink landscapes.