Exhibition Reboot and Gallery Talk with Eiko Otake and William Johnston

Thursday, April 2, 2015 at 12:00pm
College of East Asian Studies Gallery at Mansfield Freeman Center

FREE!A luncheon buffet will be served.

Dancer/choreographer Eiko Otake and photographer William Johnston will talk about their collaboration for the exhibition A Body in Fukushima.

A Body in Fukushima is a haunting series of color photographs and videos presented in a groundbreaking exhibition across all three of Wesleyan’s galleries. Last year, dancer-choreographer Eiko Otake and photographer-historian William Johnston followed abandoned train tracks through desolate stations into eerily vacant towns and fields in Fukushima, Japan. Following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, the explosions of the Daiichi nuclear plant made the area uninhabitable. Sometimes in vulnerable gestures and at other times in a fierce dance, Ms. Otake embodies grief, anger, and remorse. Mr. Johnston’s crystalline images capture her with the cries of the Fukushima landscapes. “By placing my body in these places,” she says, “I thought of the generations of people who used to live there. I danced so as not to forget.” A project of witness, remembrance, and empathy, A Body in Fukushima grapples with the reality of human failure. As Mr. Johnston writes, “By witnessing events and places, we actually change them and ourselves in ways that may not always be apparent but are important.”

William Johnston is Professor of History and East Asian Studies at Wesleyan, and Eiko Otake is Visiting Artist in the Dance Department and the College of East Asian Studies. A Body in Fukushima was co-commissioned by Wesleyan University and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia. This project was made possible in part by funds from the Japan Foundation, the Creative Campus Initiative of the Center for the Arts, and the Office of Academic Affairs, Wesleyan University.

The A Body in Fukushima exhibition will be presented:

Wednesday, February 4 through Sunday, March 1, 2015
Tuesday-Sunday, Noon-5pm
South Gallery, Erza and Cecile Zilkha Gallery

Wednesday, February 4 through Thursday, March 5, 2015
Tuesday-Sunday Noon-4pm
Davison Art Center

Wednesday, February 4 through Sunday, May 24, 2015
Tuesday-Sunday, Noon-4pm
Closed Friday, March 6 through Tuesday, March 24, 2015
College of East Asian Studies Gallery at Mansfield Freeman Center