God Loves Japan raises awareness about Japan’s recovery efforts
Originally published in NIKKEI VOICE March 2012 issue (Feature image courtesy of Daisuke Takeya, see the rest of his works here: daisuketakeya.com)
“I feel sorry to ask you, but can you kneel down?”
Daisuke Takeya pointed toward a spot on the floor. Inside his closet-sized wooden shack, the floorboards are strewn with a carpet of old toys, wrinkled books and magazines. The narrow space, with the roof hanging a little over six-feet tall, is scattered with everyday household items: an alarm clock, a rotary phone, a television set with the words ‘all you need is love, maybe’ across the black screen. There’s even a plastic goggle.
“Can you look in it?” he asked. You can only do that on all fours.
Through the lens, a spot of bright light shines through a dark hole. Somewhere in the pile of sand and trash is a white neon sign that reads: “Yes”.
“When you are looking at it, you look like one of the rescuers,” Takeya says.
It’s a welcoming sign — not all hope is lost.
When Toronto-based performance artist, Daisuke Takeya, traveled through the earthquake and tsunami-devastated regions of Tohoku, Japan late last year, hope was sparse among a population deprived of their homes, livelihoods, and the prospect of life ever returning to “normal”. For three weeks, Takeya slept in his car and conducted arts workshops for children in temporary housings and orphanages. He realizes then what it means to ‘never lose hope’: “the kids are so happy,” he says. “I know they have some trauma deep inside, but they are happy and still want to have fun.”
Perhaps the silver lining here and hidden within Takeya’s latest installation, God Loves Japan, is that our situation is what we make of it. The same sentiment is clearly demonstrated by the many subliminal signs and messages he planted throughout the 14-feet tall wreckage constructed to symbolize a typical Japanese house in the aftermath of the tsunami.
The entire work is divided into three levels. On the highest floor, the wooden shack’s interior walls are plastered with photographs of volunteers in the relief efforts. Below the shack is a playground surrounded by an disorienting array of random scraps, clothes, luggage and shoes. On the ground floor lies a broken heart sculpture on its side — recycled from Takeya’s 2007 Nuit Blanche booth “Everybody Loves You 2” — playing previous video recordings of people saying ‘I love you’ from the hollow of its woofer.
Nearby, the adjacent white wall has been partially painted black to the height of the tsunami wave that struck Tohoku’s coast — 10 feet, exactly. It would’ve submerged two-thirds of the display underwater. “I want to recreate the height of the house where the audience can actually come up and experience it,” Takeya says. “It’s different from [what you see on] Youtube. By actually come upstairs and be in a Japanese house, the Canadian audience can feel ‘wow, the water came up this high?’”
With the approaching anniversary of the March 11 earthquake, Takeya hopes his title — a reference to Douglas Coupland’s 2001 book God Hates Japan — can raise the much-needed support and awareness from the Canadian public. The author gave his personal approval for the use of the title as well.
“He (Coupland) said that it’s a great idea to use this title ‘God Loves Japan’ versus God Hates Japan and what if god loves Japan? This wouldn’t have happened right?” Takeya says. Ultimately, he leaves it to the audience to decide if the same love survived the destruction.
But can a country now in a state reminiscent of the “lost decade” Coupland fictionalized in his book find reasons to hope in the long, drawn-out recovery? As Takeya sees it, the future is prime with possibilities: “To be honest … there’s not so much Japan can feel optimistic about. Everything is in decline. But we artists are really trying to understand and contextualize the reality and imagine and make it into different forms to encourage people. So I think now’s the greatest time for artists to lead a nation in need.”
God Loves Japan is on display at the Museum Of Contemporary Canadian Art from Feb. 4 to April 1.