Charlotte Wells
Charlotte Wells was born in 1987 in Scotland and is a filmmaker based in New York. Wells graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Classics from King’s College London and then a Master of Arts from Oxford University. After, she worked in finance and ran an agency for people working in film with a friend in London. She then earned a Master of Fine Arts and a Master of Business Administration at the Tisch School of the Arts. She was supported by the BAFTA New York Media Studies Scholarship Program while in school and wrote and directed three short films. In 2018, she was named one of Filmmaker’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film, and in 2020, she became a fellow at the 2020 Sundance Institute Screenwriters and Directors Labs. Aftersun (2022) is Wells’ first feature-length film.  

The blazing hot sunshine of summer. The waft of chlorine from the pool. The feel of sunscreen. 11-year-old Sophie (Frankie Corio) goes on summer vacation to a Turkish resort with her father, Calum (Paul Mescal), who lives apart. The two spend happy, precious moments with each other, sometimes conversing awkwardly with a camcorder in one hand. 

The above makes it sound like Aftersun is a heartwarming story about family, but it takes an unexpected turn as the film progresses. The film, which won over 70 awards at film festivals worldwide and was named the best film of 2022 by numerous influential platforms, portrays an adult coping with his mental health and people reconnecting to one another through memories and imagination.  

The film’s director is Charlotte Wells, who hails from Scotland, and this is her first feature-length film. We spoke to her about Aftersun, which was informed by her own experiences but is ultimately completely fictional.  

*This interview includes details related to the plot of the film.  

On choosing a camcorder as a medium  

—Between the first draft of the script and the completed film, what was the biggest change you made?  

Charlotte Wells: I removed a lot of characters. By focusing on the story of Sophie and Calum, I got rid of the conflict between them. There was more friction between them in the first draft. When I got feedback on that script, people asked me to push the [source] of their friction further, and I realized that wasn’t what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to make it about two people at odds with each other. I wanted the conflict to come from within themselves and their time apart, but I wanted them to have a positive experience for their time together.  

—The beauty of this film is how as an adult, Sophie looks back on the home video footage and comes face to face with her father, who’s no longer there. Plus, the father is barely in the videos.  

Wells: I think you’re the first person to notice that, so thank you. That was the intention. In the birthday scene where Sophie points the camera at her father, I directed Paul (who plays Calum) to avoid the camera, which is why he dances from side to side.  

The camera was a record he had for himself that Sophie now has. The footage is the only point of view of Calum that Sophie and we have. Through the camera, we have his only direct point of view during their holiday in Turkey.  

—You spoke in a different interview that there aren’t any videotapes of your father left and that you only have one photo of him. Why was a camcorder the medium of your choice despite that fact? 

Wells: One of the reasons is because it offered an interesting effect on the film in terms of perspective. There’s one home video taken at home that I remember strongly. My aunt tells my grandmother that the camera’s not on, but it is, and she points it at my grandmother during dinnertime. And behind her, above the table on the wall, is a picture of me looking straight down the lens. It was a surreal experience, seeing my younger self looking back at my current self on the couch. There was something about holding my own gaze, even though I wasn’t there. It definitely informed the end of the film, where Sophie holds her gaze. But Calum’s hands took the video. It’s like he’s an invisible person between the two Sophies.  

—Sophie “communicates” with her father while looking back at his gaze captured in the camera.   

Wells: I received one tape from a relative once this project was conceived. The tape is a series of still images. As the video goes on, you see my dad, his friend, and I playing chess around a table, but you can only see us from the neck down. Our faces aren’t in the frame. I stared at this tape and filled in the space around this static frame. I remembered the apartment and things I didn’t know. The stimulus of the tape brought things far from the back of my mind to the front. It got me thinking of the nature of records, searching beyond what is there, and filling in the gaps.  

For Sophie, the tapes are anchor points for her to remember memories. The things she sees in the tapes are a combination of things remembered and imagined.  

—Have you ever thought editing a film is like trying to make a memory stick in your mind?  

Wells: You create meaning by putting images next to each other. That’s the process of editing. In that sense, the process of memory is the same. But memories remain more fluid. They never set; they’re constantly adjusting and molding themselves when they need and want to. But it’s all about searching for meaning.  

I feel like most people’s memories are based on images, which is why film is a great medium for works about memory.  

The challenge of depicting a young and good father  

—I feel like it’s rare to see young, good fathers like Calum in films. Why did you decide to show a character like that? 

Wells: Fathers in films are often portrayed as deadbeat or absent. He’s absent from her life because they don’t live together, but that doesn’t make him emotionally absent. That was my experience with my dad, but that sort of father-daughter relationship isn’t represented onscreen often. It was also important to cast someone who looked young enough to be mistaken for Sophie’s brother. 

The driving force behind the film was my desire to represent that kind of father. At the same time, it presented challenges because people are accustomed to seeing the deadbeat dad onscreen, and that’s what they want to see. If they want to, they’ll overlook the character’s every positive action in favor of arriving at that interpretation. I occasionally see Aftersun being described as a story of an estranged father and daughter. I don’t know what more I could’ve done to convince them otherwise. Perhaps there’s no winning for people who want to see a positive depiction of fathers.  

—Calum struggles with his mental health; he uses tai chi and raving to cope. How did you land on these particular physical activities? 

Wells: Tai chi and raving show different parts of Calum. Raving and dancing are associated with his time away from Sophie. I think with tai chi and meditation, he’s trying to find a healthier inner peace. He wants Sophie to see that version of himself because he’s aspiring to be a better version of himself.  

My father and his brothers used to do tai chi (laughs). It wasn’t popular in Scotland then, so I think it was unusual. But yes, tai chi and raving are coping mechanisms for different sides of Calum.    

—The rave scene plays a vital role in the film. Do you go clubbing or dancing regularly?  

Wells: Yes and no. I only go dancing with a certain amount of alcohol in my bloodstream. I can’t be certain I could find the dance floor (laughs). Dancing is fun, but dropping my self-consciousness around it is hard. I envy that as a form of release. 

I watched a lot of UK rave footage from the 90s on YouTube. It’s a very specific time. It had great freedom, expression, and community, but I also saw another side of that; people on drugs with desperate facial expressions. It seemed like there were people trapped within it. What at first was a place of liberation could become a place of inescapability.  

The rave footage determined the direction and power dynamics of the film. At the end of the film, Sophie gets closer to a white, death mask-like face. It looks like a place of comfort and solace from a distance, but as you get closer, you see the face of desperation. That’s what I wanted the rave scene to express.  

—I see. That’s why Calum has a stern look on his face. 

Wells: There’s a parallel between the hotel and the rave. Calum tries to coax Sophie onto the dance floor, but she dismisses him. But as an adult, she constantly wishes to return to that moment. Sophie wishes to engage with him again in that space. But as an adult, she sees something she didn’t expect there as a child. 

Editing this film was more nerve-wracking than ever 

—I want to know about your cultural experiences. What sort of films and music did you grow up consuming? 

Wells: I had an unlimited pass for the movies, so it was like I lived in the cinema during my early teens. But they showed a lot of mainstream American and British movies. I started watching independent films after attending film festivals at around 17 or 18. I went to film school and started watching the kind of films I do now.  

I listened to a lot of music that led to pop-punk of the early 2000s in my teens; a lot of it is in the film. After that, I listened to slightly heavier rock. In my 20s, I became interested in electronic music. Music and films have played a big role in my life.   

—In another interview, you referenced the short story writer Muriel Spark. Do you like reading? 

Wells: When did I mention her (laughs)? It’s interesting; I was thinking about her again recently. I probably mentioned Muriel Spark’s book because I believe the best books shouldn’t be adapted into films. They’re written in the form of a novel. I’m interested in the idea of using a medium to the fullest. If a work does that well, I don’t think it should be adapted. 

But I also sometimes read while thinking about adaptation. Short-form stories are better suited for films because they’re about the tone and provide space to build a world.      

—Do you have other writers you like? 

Wells: Patricia Highsmith, Eileen Myles. I read a lot of poetry and classics because I studied classics as an undergraduate. The translation of The Odyssey by Emily Wilson, for instance. I have a diverse range of books on my bookshelf. 

—You’ve shot three short films in the past, but this is your first feature-length film. What was the most challenging part of shooting a feature-length film? 

Wells: Editing. It took about seven months to edit after the intensity of the shooting. It was a very long process that required stamina and was different from editing a short film. Small changes would have profound impacts on people’s perception of the film, so it was hard to edit, more than usual. There were ten times more people when we shot it, but that didn’t feel different from shooting a short film. 

—Which do you like better: shooting or editing? 

Wells: They’re both hell (laughs). But I like shooting with the crew. I like to be alone, but shooting this film was special because we were isolated due to covid. I used to do editing for a living until this film, so I enjoy it. Blair McClendon, the editor, and I went to the same film school, so I can put my trust in him. But editing this film was hard, so there was probably more joy in shooting. 

Translation Lena Grace Suda
Photography Yuri Manabe

Aftersun  
Out in theaters nationwide on May 26th, including Human Trust Cinema Yurakucho and Shinjuku Piccadilly Cinema 

Written and directed by: Charlotte Wells  
Cast: Paul Mescal, Frankie Corio, Celia Rowlson-Hall 
Cinematography by: Gregory Oke 
2022/England・USA/In color/Vista/5.1 ch/101 minutes  
Distributed by: Happinet Phantom Studios 
© Turkish Riviera Run Club Limited, British Broadcasting Corporation, The British Film Institute & Tango 2022 
http://happinet-phantom.com/aftersun/

The post A Dialogue Between a Father and Daughter Via a Videotape: Charlotte Wells, the Director of Aftersun, on Imagination and Memories appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

A news report on a viral tweet, the Pokemon franchise expanding into animation, playing cards, and apps, making a fanzine about something you’re obsessed with — these things might look random, but there’s a common theme. These phenomena are examples of convergence culture.  

“Ready or not, we are already living within a convergence culture.” This is the opening line of the translated version of the leading book on fandom theory, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, published last month through Shobunsha. What is convergence culture? The author, Henry Jenkins, lays out the three criteria:  

“… the flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries, and the migratory behavior of media audiences who will go almost anywhere in search of the kinds of entertainment experiences they want.” (Jenkins, 2006, p. 2) 

This term encompasses a wide range of things, from #MeToo, fanfiction, Wikipedia, fans visiting real-life locations from fiction, all the way to the Capitol riot. Convergence Culture is significant because it transformed how the media industry operates (chiefly old media like TV and newspapers). It also changed how consumers interact with media itself. Consumers are no longer passive because they react and respond to those creating media in a myriad of ways. Thanks to this convergence, the power dynamics at play have become much more complex.  

How, then, did the relationship between creators and fans change? What are the possibilities of fandoms? What is its dark side? We sat down and spoke to Kohki Watabe, Sae Kitamura, and Yasuhito Abe, who have shared the experience of taking Jenkins’s class and translating his book into Japanese as one team. 

A history of convergence culture in Japan? 

——What sort of scholar is Henry Jenkins? 

Kohki Watabe (Watabe): He’s a towering figure in fan studies. His most-read book is probably Convergence Culture, but he established himself as an authority on the subject when he published Textual Poachers: Television Fans & Participatory Culture in 1992.  

Yasuhito Abe (Abe): There’s no doubt about it. Even in Japan, people often cited Textual Poachers from the mid-90s onwards.  

Sae Kitamura (Kitamura): I believe he’s the most positive-minded scholar in the field of fan studies. He writes about fun, exciting things.  

——In his book, Jenkins writes that Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! are trailblazing examples of convergence culture.  

Watabe: He must’ve heard about those from Japanese researchers he knew. However, the phenomenon of convergence exists even without technology. Fan culture is everywhere in Japan. People were already making literary fanzines during the Meiji era. Sci-fi communities were making fanzines after the war. If we consider everyday people partaking in fan culture as convergence in popular media, then Kadokawa Shoten’s multimedia franchise from the 90s onwards is convergence in corporations.  

——What are some examples of bottom-up, grassroots convergence in recent years?  

Kitamura: Hashtag activism is one example. There was an initiative to improve National Theatre Live, a project to show theatrical productions in English-speaking countries in Japanese movie theaters. At the time, the quality of the subtitles was awful. Fans spoke out against it on platforms like Twitter, being like, “The subtitles are wrong.” As a result, they fixed the issue. Also, whenever an adaptation of a book or a film geared towards women is showing in Japan, they’re given weird titles most of the time. 

——Suffragette was translated to “Mirai o Hanataba ni Shite,” which means something along the lines of “turn the future into a bouquet.” People tend to attach the word, future, to films in this vein.  

Kitamura: There have been times where film buffs protested against that sort of thing by using hashtags. For instance, the Japanese title of Hidden Figures changed quite dramatically. (Note: At the time, “Watashitachi no Apollo Keikaku,” which translates to “Our Project Apollo,” was part of the title. However, the film doesn’t depict Project Apollo; it depicts Project Mercury). In English-speaking countries, it’s more aggressive. Fans said the 3D model of Sonic the Hedgehog was weird, and Sonic the Hedgehog changed a lot because of that. 

The influence of fans’ opinions  

——Are there any examples of fans’ voices influencing those who create media, as well as the content itself?  

Watabe: In terms of Japan, pixiv users protesting against Chaos*Lounge is a classic example. The contemporary art group used artworks created by pixiv users without their permission; they used them in their collage, wet them with water, and so forth. Chaos*Lounge even printed pixiv users’ works on their products without permission and sold them for profit. To fight back, people started to use Chaos*Lounge’s art within pixiv under the hashtag, “Gendai art” (contemporary art). Meaning, they subverted Chaos*Lounge’s reasoning behind referencing other people’s work for the sake of contemporary art. The capitalistic logic of contemporary art and the gift economy of the fandom clashed against each other.  

Kitamura: The phenomenon of fans complaining to writers goes back to the 18th century when the novel format was born. Writers usually write with a vision from the start, so many writers don’t listen to their readers. But it’s a negotiation. Indeed, some writers have incorporated their readers’ opinions into their work and changed it a bit. The most famous case of this is Sherlock Holmes. In English-speaking countries, fandoms demanding something from authors have taken root since then. Like, “I want this dead character to come back to life.” From long ago, the opinions of fans have either helped creators or harmed them. I think it’s an ambiguous thing. People have speculated that the new Star Wars trilogy has gone downhill because of the fans, as an example.

Abe: Because the way information circulates has changed thanks to social media and others, fans’ opinions have become more visible and accessible to creators. Recently, apps like Clubhouse, which doesn’t leave a trace, have entered the market. People talk about deep things they usually wouldn’t want other people to hear. Now that apps that don’t save data and allow users to open up in a safe space are popping up, creaters might become even more porcher-like. 

——To listen to the fans’ true thoughts.  

Abe: You can observe what fans think on platforms like Twitter all you want. But some are reluctant to leave their footprints online; those people might have even more intriguing and beneficial insights.  

Unless the creator is competent, the fan won’t be either. 

——I’d like to know about the connection between fans and critical ananlyses. People tend to say, “Fans don’t like critical analyses,” but don’t fans make critical analyses at times? 

Kitamura: It’s incredibly tough to say whether there’s a difference between critical analyses and what fans write. But I think it’s not good for fans to act as though they’re not writing things that criticize a specific creator. There are a lot of people who do make critical analyses. By thinking, “What we’re doing isn’t critical analyses,” they’re ignoring the structure of the creative industry. Perhaps fans should say, “We’re critiquing,” proudly. Short compliments have become the norm on social media, and it’s a problem because people can’t write anything negative out of fear of getting attacked by other fans. 

——Is it possible for fanfiction to become a work of criticism? 

Kitamura: People have made critical analyses through derivative works from long ago. Many people have done it for so long, including adaptations of Shakespeare’s work. There are different kinds of derivative works, and some are better than others, but changing something because you’re unsatisfied with the original story or imagining and writing aspects and elements that weren’t in the original story are both forms of criticism.  

——You mentioned the new Star Wars trilogy, but what does a healthy relationship between creators and fans look like? I assume it’s ideal for it to lead to a good, finished product. 

Kitamura: I feel like if the creator isn’t competent, then the fan won’t be either. For example, Spike Lee acts like he doesn’t listen to what other people say, but he actually reads criticisms and reflects them into his work. Auteurs at his level become better and better at responding to criticism. Maintaining a state of fans and creators challenging one another is ideal.  

Watabe: Of course, creators need to be mentally and emotionally strong, and I agree with Kiramura-san. However, it’s so difficult- I’m impressed by how Spike Lee can read critiques of his work. I mean, I can’t even look up [our translation of Convergence Culture] because I’m scared people might be saying something like, “The translation of Convergence Culture is so bad” (laughs). It’s not uncommon for fans to fall into “the dark side of the force.” For example, I wouldn’t  call someone who buys enormous amounts of CDs that come with meet-and-greet tickets so they could shake hands with their favorite idols for longer time, a good fan. But I understand that feeling of getting sucked into the dark side.  

In search of “good” fans 

——What makes one a good fan or a good consumer? How can one prevent oneself from slipping into the dark side?  

Abe: For creators and fans to have smooth communication, fans must have good communication among themselves. I think one requirement — and this is something Jenkins writes about too — is for older fans to act as mentors and welcome in new fans, instead of trying to one-up them with their knowledge like, “You don’t know this?” That sort of communication is vital because it brings the fandom to life and could be one condition for making the communication between creators and fans run smoothly.  

Watabe: Knowing your own desires is one qualification of being a good consumer and fan. You can be a fan of anything. The reason some people end up one-upping others is that they don’t understand their desire. If something moves you, and you’re projecting your desires onto it, then you should lean into that. If you don’t know what you want, you’ll easily be swayed by advertisements. The same could be said about consumers too.

——How could we discover what we want and immerse ourselves in that? 

Watabe: Be active as a fan! Fandoms are learning environments, in a sense. In his book, Jenkins introduces the Harry Potter fandom, where experienced writers teach newer ones how to write fanfiction. I believe that’s one medium to teach one another about what each person wants.  

Kitamura: I teach at university, and “To nurture a good citizen, a good spectator, and a good consumer” has always been my educational principle. A good citizen is someone who can judge what sort of politics they should endorse and whether that’s right in their view. A good spectator is someone who can appreciate and think about the value of art objectively. A good consumer is someone who can consume intelligently and ethically. The problem is how these three factors don’t necessarily balance each other out. If you try to become a good spectator, you could become a bad consumer, and the opposite can occur too. One example is whether you should pay money to consume something that’s artistically brilliant but created in a workplace with harassment. Having a balance [between the three principles] is hard, but the key is to think and decide on your own according to the situation.  

Watabe: I assume what Kitamura-san is saying is that she wants to create thought patterns that don’t separate the categories of lifestyle, pleasure, and politics. I deeply understand how that’s necessary to make society better. Here’s an example. AKB’s general election (a yearly event where fans vote for their favorite idol member from the respective idol group) was symbolically problematic, and the event got reduced to fans driving their favorite to the top by buying election tickets. I won’t reject it as a business. But if we accept its practice, then I feel like politics would fundamentally succumb to consumerism. It’s impossible to revive politics as it once was, even if we were to distinguish [pop culture from politics]. We can’t pretend like the fuse of politics and pop culture never happened. If anything, doesn’t it need to be torn down from the inside? That’s what was on my mind as I translated Convergence Culture.

Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide by Henry Jenkins (translated by Kohki Watabe, Sae Kitamura, and Yasuhito Abe) is out now through Shobunsha. 

Kohki Watabe
Kohki Watabe is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Tsukuba University and a visiting assistant Professor at Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology. He has a black belt in kendo, naginata, and Shingyōtō-ryū (LA dojo). He theorizes on the fandom of martial art communities. 

Sae Kitamura
Sae Kitamura is an associate professor at the Department of British and American Studies, Faculty of Humanities, Musashi University. She is the author of The Women who Enjoyed Shakespeare’s Plays: Modern Theatre and Reading (Hakusuisha, 2018), Sugar, Spice, and Something Explosive: An Introduction to Feminist Literary Criticism by a Frivolous Critic (Kankanbou, 2019), and more. She is a Shakespearean and self-proclaimed Jedi.  

Yasuhito Abe
Yasuhito Abe is a lecturer of the Department of Global Media, Faculty of Global Media Studies, at Komazawa University. His recommended games are Nobunaga’s Ambition Series, Ace Attorney Series, and Dragon Quest Series.  

Photography Kikuko Usuyama
Translation Lena Grace Suda

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In the third volume of this series, we interview critic/curator Mika Maruyama and artist/actor Mai Endo, the duo behind Japanese queer art zine, Multiple Spirits.

“In the beginning, woman was the sun.” These were the words written in 1911 by Hiratsuka Raicho in the first issue of Seito [Bluestocking], Japan’s first all-women literary magazine. Since then, over a century has passed. In 2018, the first issue of Multiple Spirits, the “queer art zine from/within Japan,” appropriated the cover of Seito’s first issue.

In recent years, Japan has seen an increasing interest in issues concerning gender and sexuality in response to the fourth-wave feminism that is sweeping the world. Nearly every week, new essays and academic books on related topics line the shelves of bookstores, and the number of dramas and movies depicting sexual minorities has increased to a level unimaginable ten years ago.

Meanwhile, how about the art world? The 2019 Aichi Triennale made an affirmative action plan to include an equal number of male and female artists in an effort to promote gender equality and was met with substantial backlash.

Multiple Spirits’ name comes from the multiple ways of thinking, and it was under these circumstances that the first issue was launched. Started by Mika Maruyama and Mai Endo, the two printed the first issue using a home printer, binding the pages themselves using a stapler.

The zine currently has two issues out. Inside the zine, one can find content that weaves together hard and soft topics, including interviews with artists working domestically and abroad, translations of discourse around feminism in the communist bloc and the Anthropocene, and conversations in the form of casual chats.

What kind of concerns did Multiple Spirits emerge from? Why are they “a queer art zine from/within Japan?” Their background story includes encounters with overseas feminism/queer theory and concerns about the discourse that has dominated Japan’s art world since the “gender dispute.”

――Why did you decide to start Multiple Spirits?

Mika Maruyama: This is my sixth year living in Vienna, so it all started when Mai [Endo] came to Vienna to study abroad. We weren’t particularly close at the time, but I knew she made work around feminist themes, so I introduced her to Marina Gržinić, a professor at my school, the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. She’s a philosopher from Slovenia who’s also active as an artist, and her class was a really open place where artists, researchers, and activists all came together for discussions.

Mai Endo: A bit before I studied abroad in Vienna, I presented a work called “I Am Not a Feminist!” at Festival/Tokyo 17, in which I signed a marriage contract with my then-husband and carried out a wedding ceremony at a performing arts festival. But right after that, we got divorced for personal reasons unrelated to that piece. My work and life had become so connected that I lost sight of what kind of work to make and what kind of life to live going forward. And that was when I decided to go to Vienna.

Mika: So I listened to her troubles about that, and we started opening up to each other. Since coming to Vienna, I’ve been growing particularly interested in work that crosses queer theory and media theory, but I couldn’t help but feel a gap between what’s being said in Japanese and what’s being discussed in Vienna. I wanted to create a space to have those kinds of discussions in Japanese through art. But I couldn’t do it alone. While listening to Mai’s troubles, I felt like although our work was different, we had a shared awareness of issues, so it started when I asked her, “Want to make a zine?”

Mai: We hit it off over drinks, like, “That sounds great!” At that time in 2018, art wasn’t as talked about in Japanese in the context of feminism and queerness as it is now, so we were also motivated to find language that aligned with our reality.

――What kind of school is the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna?

Mika: It’s an art school, but it places importance on theory as well as practice, so there’s quite a lot of gender and queer theory. Everyone is familiar with these theories, so even if you’re an artist, you can seek out discussions, and there’s a lot of art that deals with gender and sexuality. Also, there are a lot of people staying in Austria under different statuses whether they’re immigrants, refugees, or international students, so even when I say gender and queerness, there’s still the difficulty of having discussions within different contexts.

Mai: I was on Tokyo University of the Arts’ exchange program, but Geidai [Tokyo University of the Arts] has an overwhelmingly large proportion of male professors. The Academy is completely the opposite, and about 80%, from the professors to the staff, are non-male. In relation to my work, people around me often asked what I thought about gender and sexuality, and how it was discussed in Japan. But I’d never been asked to give an opinion about Japanese society through my work before, so I felt frustrated at myself for only being able to respond with clichés like, “There still isn’t enough discourse in Japanese art,” or “I’ve internalized the situation in Japan.” Also, Marina said that universities are open to all people who seek knowledge, so even you weren’t her student, or weren’t a student at all, anyone who wanted to participate was welcome to come whenever they wanted. That was so cool of her. Every day, all kinds of people were coming and going.

――Why do you declare that you’re “from/within Japan” in your statement?

Mika: There’s no question that we grew up in Japanese culture, particularly the girls’ culture of the 90s. So first off, we thought we couldn’t ignore the influence of that culture when talking about art and gender. Girls’ culture is a connection point to queer culture, too. Also, we wanted to emphasize the kind of soil our knowledge grows from. I think there’s no such thing as universal knowledge. I’ve been influenced by and admire the history and practices of black feminism and Latin American feminism, which have taken creating language into their own hands. So it’s not about disseminating Japanese culture, but about us wanting to construct our own language as Japanese speakers. Of course, that comes from the fact that we view Japan’s patriarchal discourse as problematic.

Also, there’s the problem of translation; Multiple Spirits is bilingual in Japanese and English, so we have non-Japanese speakers in mind, too. As people raised in Japan, we’ve been forced to confront Japaneseness on many different levels upon going abroad and being exposed to foreign cultures. For example, when we think about gender and sexuality, we can’t ignore Japanese imperialism, colonialism, and racism. You can’t just be a neutral person, and there are so many situations where I have to be aware of the cultural breeding ground of Japan. So I’d like to create a space to connect art and language that includes that perspective.

――In your statement, you write, “We belong to the historical flow of feminism.”

Mika: When it comes to gender and sexuality, many barriers couldn’t have been broken without the efforts of our predecessors, and we think it’s the same for the queer community. In the context of Japan, even the art world in the 90s often featured feminism and gender-related themes. There were exhibitions and active discourse, too.

――What was that like?

Mika: In the 90s, researchers, such as Kaori Chino and Midori Wakakuwa founded The Image and Gender Research Association. Artist and researcher Yoshiko Shimada, who’s still active today, brought up gender issues while linking them back to imperialism, and Yuko Hasegawa curated the exhibition, De-Genderism detruire dit-elle/il (1997). Performance artist Tari Ito established Women’s Art Network and Dumb Type presented S/N during this period, too.

Mai: In 1991, a special exhibition by Michiko Kasahara* at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography was apparently the first art exhibition held in a Japanese art museum from the perspective of gender and feminism. According to Kasahara, there’d been a phobia against feminism in Japan until then. I think it was a period where a lot of perspectives that’d been lacking started to grow.

*From 1989, Michiko Kasahara was an art curator at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, where she organized many exhibitions. Currently, she is the Vice Director of the Artizon Museum.

Mika: It was a really active time for gender and sexuality issues in the arts. But as we entered the 2000s, that disappeared. One of those causes is called the “gender dispute,” where critics in Japan’s art world said that because feminism was an imported concept, Japan didn’t need it, and that caused discourse to die out. Also, there was a big backlash from Japanese society overall against feminism. We’re from the generation below that, but I felt uncomfortable that not only did we not talk about gender issues, but even when I talked with female artists, their work was lumped together from a male-centric perspective with phrases like, “female-specific” and “representations of femininity.” There’s actually a wide variety of things that lie behind what people have hidden with the word “femininity.”

――People only have a rough understanding, so they can only express themselves with rudimentary vocabulary.

Mika: I felt like the words didn’t exist. That’s why earlier, I said we have to construct language—because we also wanted to know what’s hidden behind the word “femininity.”

――I see.

Mika: For example, Mai and I have thought about how the discourse and the work of female artists is different in a photography world with Michiko Kasahara versus what it would be without someone like that. Just as Yurie Nagashima wrote in “’Bokura’ no ‘onnanoko shashin’ kara watashitachi no girly photo e,” (2020) the photography world in the 1990s was male-dominated. Yet, I think there’s a side to it where curators like Kasahara have allowed artists like Nagashima and Yuki Onodera to be on the front lines with their work. On the other hand, there are very few female artists who are active in Japanese contemporary art.

――Just one person can make a big difference.

Mika: Kasahara is an expert in gender theory, and I think it was big that she created discourse as a curator at a photography museum by connecting feminism and gender to photos. We’re able to access that discourse and art practice because of her too.

――Is there anything you feel as a creator, Mai?

Mai: I feel like in these past few years, creators’ awareness and ways of thinking have changed at a really rapid rate. Also, they’re not only making the themes around gender and sexuality, but also thinking of the form, structure, and creation process itself more radically. For example, curator Junya Utsumi, who contributed to the second issue of Multiple Spirits started a concept called “Feminism Curation,” criticizing the male-centric and monolithic framework of exhibitions themselves. Also, critics Takumi Fukuo and So Kurosaki said that they questioned the masculine narrative of critiques, so they were interested in the use of the “chat” format in the second issue of Multiple Spirits.

Mika: We also want to encounter, share, and learn more about that kind of expressive work. The reason why we deal with girls’ culture head-on is because we were influenced by the collaboration between Satoko Ichihara and Fuyuhiko Takada and their respective practices, and the reason why we dare to emphasize “chatting” is because Aya Momose and Maiko Jinushi’s work exists. Miwa Negoro, a curator who translates with me, is also aware of the suppressed discourse, and I think that’s why we share the understanding that we need to talk about it in the form of artistic expression or discourse, regardless of the method. I think that has something to do with the fact that art collectives are becoming more active now. There were connections across fields like that in the 90s too, and I think that created a big flow. Especially because it’s disappeared, it’s like we want to do what’s been repressed in a different form.

Mai: That’s true. At the time of the gender dispute, the criticisms that came up when more exhibitions started dealing with feminism and gender were that feminism is a “borrowed ideology or understanding,” and wasn’t based on reality, and of course, Multiple Spirits takes into account the logic of the side that made those criticisms. Having said that, I think the old binary of Japan versus the West is already invalid, and I want to talk about more things we can share transnationally. In that regard, the fact that we have two locations, with me in Japan and Mika in Vienna, makes things very open.

Mika: When I first came to Vienna, it made me realize that the conversation around art and gender in Japan hadn’t been updated since the 90s. Even my teacher told me, “First, you need to update your way of thinking.” Although gender theory stopped being discussed all that much in Japan, the intersectionality between feminism and queerness has developed, and feminism by people of color and new discourses from South America and Southeast Asia have been created, right? This is true in the field of art, too. In Japan, even though all kinds of activities continue, I think people talk about gender issues as if they’re a thing of the past.

――So the discourse in Japan hasn’t been updated since the gender dispute?

Mika: Since the Aichi Triennale, I think there’ve been more works and discussions around gender in Japan than before, but I also see some of the same discussions from the past being repeated. Of course, it’s a change we should welcome, but I also wonder why it’s coming from a perspective that only takes up gender as an issue. At Multiple Spirits, we think intersectionality is important, and we think it’s important how different issues relate and intersect. We believe that because of our understanding that we are standing in the history of feminist and queer communities up to this point. Also, rather than repeat the same things, we want to use the potential we have today and think about what we’re experiencing, and we want to know how other people are thinking, too.

――What do you want to do going forward?

Mai: Multiple Spirits is bilingual in Japanese and English, but we also want to have a cultural exchange with non-English speakers, and we want to research the cultural exchange that’s already happened. We don’t want language to become a barrier. In 2019, we went to Seoul and met and talked with artists directly, went to see local exhibitions on feminism and queerness, and got acupuncture and moxibustion done. In the future, I’d like to engage with whatever I’m interested in, regardless of the genre.

Mika: Multiple Spirits has given me more opportunities for meetings and exchanges. In particular, I’d like to take good care of my connections in East Asia, like Korea and China. Also, I’m interested in the cessation of the discussions that took place in the 90s in Japan, so I’d like to connect with people who were involved in that kind of work. And, I’d like to hurry up and release issue 3. We’re both trying to finish our PhDs, so we haven’t been able to start the final edit…but we make it a rule not to overdo it.

Mika Maruyama
Born in Nagano Prefecture, Mika Maruyama is a curator and critic based in Vienna and Tokyo. She holds a master’s degree in philosophy from Yokohama Graduate School of Culture, the Graduate School of Yokohama National University, Japan, and is currently a doctoral student at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. The exhibitions she has curated include “When It Waxes and Wanes” (Vienna, 2020), “Protocols of Together” (Vienna, 2019), “Behind the Terrain” (Yogyakarta, 2016/Hanoi, 2017/Tokyo, 2018), and “Body Electric,” (Tokyo, 2017). She is also a contributing writer at publications including “Artscape,” (Bijitsu Techo) “Camera Austria,” and “Flash Art. http://www.mika-maruyama.com/

Mai Endo
Mai Endo was born in Hyogo Prefecture. She is currently completing a Doctoral Program in Fine Arts at Tokyo University of the Arts. She is an artist and actress who combines media and methodologies such as video, photography, and theater. Her expression playfully overlaps the message of the body in the here and now and the gap between social norms and art forms. Her main recent exhibitions include “Kanojotachi wa utau” (The University Art Museum, Tokyo University of the Arts, 2020), “New Crystal Palace” (Talion Gallery, Tokyo, 2020), and “When It Waxes and Wanes” (Vienna, 2020). Her solo exhibitions include “I Am Not a Feminist!” (Goethe-Institut Tokyo, 2017)

Edit Jun Ashizawa(TOKION)

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