Afternote: In the Shade of Cinema

Exhibition: September 13, 2024 – March 1, 2025

Afternote: In the Shade of Cinema is an exhibition focusing on the history of movie theatres in the provincial city of Yamaguchi, Japan. Curated by Yu Iseki (Curator of the Contemporary Art Gallery, Art Tower Mito), the display includes records and materials related to the city’s cinemas, along with the latest work by Nobuhiro Shimura, a contemporary Japanese artist who produces video installations exploring themes of memory and placeness.

In recent years, Shimura has been undertaking projects focusing on social issues and histories that are difficult to visualise from a local perspective, based on his fieldwork in the area. He also produces films from a folkloristic point of view, adopting documentary techniques to explore themes including our everchanging ecological history and the livestock industry, which concerns our everyday lives.

This exhibition presents Shimura’s most recent work also titled Afternote, which narrates the background of movie theatres in a regional area of Japan. Commissioned by YCAM, the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media, this 79-minute documentary directed by Shimura himself traces back the history of the movie “theatre” itself, which have since vanished from the city of Yamaguchi.

By unearthing the memories of local residents and what the cinema meant to them, Afternote reminisces on the days when movie theatres were considered the cultural centre, a part of daily life and the cityscape.

Afternote: In the Shade of Cinema will be held at The Japan Foundation Gallery from September 13, 2024 to March 1, 2025.

An event program accompanying the exhibition will be announced at a later date.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Afternote is a project that started as a work about “movie theatres that once existed”, commissioned by YCAM, the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media. While the subject is the Japanese provincial city of Yamaguchi, the decrease in the number of downtown movie theatres seems to be a global phenomenon that has occurred all over the world.

When we carefully read into historical facts that have not been recorded, like listening intently to a small voice, universal stories come to the surface, no matter how local they are. This project was truly an experience that modelled this. For about two years, together with YCAM staff members and a researcher, I listened to the recollections of over two hundred residents and searched through newspaper back issues looking for accounts of movie theatres. Then we ended up collecting more memories and records than we could possibly hold.

The energy of the theatre, the voice of the film narrator and the music of band players performing during the age of silent movies, the hand-painted movie signboards and the discount coupons that doubled as flyers. Most of these things have become forgotten, and completely lost.

I named these records and recollections of the movie theatre Afternote, and made a documentary film about it. It is a “postscript” of the people who held dear memories of the theatre, and the “traces” that only existed in their memories.

AFTERNOTE TRAILER

Artist: Nobuhiro Shimura

Born in 1982 in Tokyo, Japan. Currently lives and works in Chiba, Japan.
Completed his master’s degree in Imaging Arts and Sciences at Musashino Art University in 2007. From 2016 to 2018, he was a visiting researcher at INALCO (Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales) in Paris under the overseas study program for upcoming artists of the Agency for Cultural Affairs. Shimura has created a number of video installations that employ images of everyday objects and landscapes. In recent years he has been engaging in film works with a documentary approach based on his fieldwork. He has been involved in projects that focus on social issues and histories that are difficult to visualise from a local perspective. His major exhibitions include Afternote: Memories and Archives of Cinema in Yamaguchi City (Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM], Yamaguchi, 2023-24), Mono no ke (solo, Warrnambool Art Gallery, Victoria, 2018).

Curator: Yu Iseki

Chief Curator of the Contemporary Art Gallery, Art Tower Mito
After working in the Akiyoshidai International Art Village Planning Department, Iseki became assistant curator of the Yokohama Triennale 2005. He then went on to become a curator for the Shiseido Gallery and coordinator of the Yokohama Triennale 2014, before transferring to Art Tower Mito in December 2014. He has been in his current position since April 2022. Notable projects he has worked on include Rei Naito: On This Bright Earth I See You, Shinro Ohtake: BLDG. 1978-2019 and Sato Masaharu Trace－Absence of Presence / Presence of Absence (these were featured in Art Tower Mito’s Contemporary Art Gallery). Iseki also co-curated Tsuyoshi Hisakado: Polite Existence at the Jameel Arts Centre with Anna Bernice delos Reyes, and was co-curator of the Japan Pavilion at the 2018 La Biennale Di Venezia – Biennale Architettura.