"Culture of Fear", ACC GALERIE WEIMAR, Halle 14, Leipzig 2005
Audio Interview Summery:
I got almost drawn in the swimming pool. It was my grand mother who saved me.
This photography project is based on interviews asking people for a specific location where one where they decided it was a scary place, or they once thought a fairy tale, movie, or TV show for children was taking an actual place in his/her childhood. The participants would be asked to go and take a photograph of the current place, or the artist herself visits the place and takes a photograph. The locations which look scary is also added to add on stories.
In the exhibition held in Weimar and Leipzig, the selected pictures from over 100 stories collected from diverse participants through an artist in residency program, The 11th International Studio Program, the ACC Galerie and the City of Weimar, were displayed and a viewer could choose to listen to the story related to each picture on headphones. A children's workshop were held and asked to view a frightening picture and make a story about the picture. The picture looks different from how it looks in the participant's mind; this would indicate the impossibility of sharing the memory as well as the change in impression through time. The workshop enriched the communication throughout the time and space.
The fears in childhood from intuitive imagination of children reflect the value system of the adult who idealizes the children. To remain conscious of fear is one of key interests in the work. Unrecognized, unspoken fear is regarded as strange feeling and by accumulating these, they turn into unknown fear and will be easily controlled to seek a scapegoat. To recognize the strange feeling and enjoy the creativity comes with it; to be able to make up stories and use imagination, might help us to keep our hope within ourselves. I would like to communicate with the audience by using this fear as catalyst. An artwork is not a translation of a content which already exists and it’s meaning is always defective. The communication between the work and the audience will be influenced by different factors. I believe that communication is one of the basic desires of human being taking different format, and by enriching communication we maintain our dignity. I seek for a way of communication from private point of view. To be able to have private opinion is to have freedom. At the same time a private meaning could be a disguised trace of the public and universal. What is private and public is complex. The ambiguous border of private and public fascinates me. When a universal idea which is lost in our time, is found in someway it sometimes gives us hope to be able to understand each other. Though the illusion of being able to understand the other is not right thing. The discovery of different ideas also gives us hope. Every body has different way of thinking and it worse to keep trying to find out what other people are thinking. The world is full of surprises and energy. I would like to find an angle which can be personal but at the same time many people can find in common.
The exhibition view in Weimar
A little house of little people is on the tree also joining the show. A thin golden string is going from the window of the house to the window of the exhibition room.
http://www.acc-weimar.de/atelier/progs/prog2005/kyoko/index.html
The exhibition view in Leipzig
Die Kultur der Angst
Ausstellung zum Phänomen Angst in Zusammenarbeit mit der ACC Galerie Weimar und Knut Birkholz (Rotterdam)
29.04. bis 01.10.2006
mit AES+F (Russland), Caroline Bachmann und Stefan Banz (Schweiz), Peter Bux (Deutschland), Critical Art Ensemble (USA), Luc Delahaye (Frankreich), Christoph Draegers (Schweiz), Kyoko Ebata (Japan), Maria Friberg (Schweden), Mandy Gehrt (Deutschland), Johan Grimonprez (Belgien), Kiosk NGO (Serbien und Montenegro), Philipp Lachenmann (Deutschland), Lucas Lenglet (Niederlande), Yerbossyn Meldibekov (Kasachstan), Trevor Paglen (USA), Nino Sekhniashvili (Georgien), Austin Shull (USA), Efrat Shvily (USA), Nedko Solakov (Bulgarien), The Yes Men (USA), Noboru Tsubaki (Japan), Oscar Tuazon und Eli Hansen (USA), Peter Wächtler (Deutschland), Wang Jianwei (China)
http://www.halle14.org/ausstellungen/ausstellungsarchiv/archiv/die-kultur-der-angst-the-culture-of-fear.html
Audio Interview Summery:
One day, my dog killed a water rat and brought it to show to me. I got scared because I though water rat from the river would take revenge on me who is the owner of the dog. Since then, I was scared of coming near the river.
When I was a child, I put fire to the filed with my friend. The fire went bigger than we thought, so we run to the fire station down the hill.
The field represented a paradise for me.
Audio Interview Summery: I played in the field. At dusk, I imagined in the black goat is coming with birds to get me.
I was always scared of going to see the direction of the concentration camp.
Audio Interview Summery: We used to play by the river. One day I found a drawn man.
