Chim↑Pom – Keith Whittle

Why Open?

Project Description

Why Open? is a solo exhibition by the Japanese artist collective Chim↑Pom, formed in Tokyo in 2005. Comprising Ryuta Ushiro, Yasutaka Hayashi, Ellie, Masataka Okada, Motomu Inaoka and Toshinori Mizuno, the collective works across performance, video, painting, installation, curating and event-making. Their practice combines sharp social critique with humour, intervention and a willingness to work within contested spaces.

Since its formation, Chim↑Pom has addressed questions surrounding war, nuclear power, borders, public space and political authority. In 2008, the collective skywrote PIKA, the Japanese mimetic word for “flash”, over Hiroshima. Following the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, they intervened in Taro Okamoto’s mural The Myth of Tomorrow, incorporating references to the nuclear catastrophe. In 2012, they became part of the collective Don’t Follow the Wind, entering the Fukushima exclusion zone to install an exhibition across abandoned properties that remains inaccessible due to radiation.

Why Open? brings together works from projects in the Fukushima Nuclear Zone, along the US–Mexico border, and in Tokyo and Taiwan, exploring the relationship between accessibility, borders and public space.

Silent Bells (2017) activates White Rainbow’s entrance buzzer, connecting the gallery directly to an abandoned house in Fukushima. When a visitor presses the gallery doorbell, the bell in the inaccessible house rings remotely, creating a physical and conceptual link between two otherwise disconnected spaces. The Grounds (2016), part of the wider project The Other Side, comprises a video and plaster cast of Ellie’s footprints made from soil beneath the US–Mexico border. After Ellie was denied entry to the United States, the collective travelled to Tijuana, where they encountered a network of unofficial tunnels. Their response included digging beneath the border and creating USA Visitor Center, a treehouse built with a local family.

Asshole of Tokyo (2018) continues the collective’s interest in underground spaces. Filmed through a manhole in Tokyo, the work imagines the city’s subterranean infrastructure as a possible route towards otherwise inaccessible territories, connecting Tokyo with the tunnels beneath the US–Mexico border and the restricted zone around Fukushima.

The exhibition also presents Chim↑Pom’s project 道 [Street] (2018), realised at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts. Developed in response to the 2014 Sunflower Movement, the project involved constructing a 200-metre street extending from the museum into the surrounding public space. The project questioned who controls institutional and public space and invited visitors to determine how the newly created street might be used.

At White Rainbow, the project is represented through Is Artistic Exchange a Crime? (2018), a three-metre section of asphalt removed from the street, alongside architectural models, banners, objects, photographs and video documentation of the project. Why Open? brings together these projects to examine how physical and political boundaries can be crossed, challenged or reimagined. Across their practice, Chim↑Pom transform ordinary spaces and situations into sites for questioning authority, accessibility and the meaning of public space.

Chim ↑ Pom, ‘Silent Bells’ (2017) Doorbell, wifi, amplifier, speaker © Chim↑Pom. Courtesy of the artist and MUJIN-TO Production

Bio

Chim↑Pom is a Japanese artist collective formed in Tokyo in 2005. The group comprises Ryuta Ushiro, Yasutaka Hayashi, Ellie, Masataka Okada, Motomu Inaoka and Toshinori Mizuno. Their interdisciplinary practice encompasses performance, video, installation, painting, curating and social projects, often engaging with political and social issues through humour, intervention and public participation.

The collective has exhibited internationally at institutions including the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Saatchi Gallery, London; Parasol unit, London; Haus der Kunst, Munich; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Their work has also been presented at the Aichi Triennale, Singapore Biennale and Yokohama Triennale. Recent exhibitions include the inaugural exhibition at the Naoshima New Museum of Art (2025), A Hole within a Hole within a Hole at ANOMALY, Tokyo (2025), and ROJŌ [shared ground] at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (2026).

Project Details

Year: 2018
Artists: Chim↑Pom — Ryuta Ushiro, Yasutaka Hayashi, Ellie, Masataka Okada, Motomu Inaoka and Toshinori Mizuno
Exhibition: Why Open?
Venue: White Rainbow, Fitzrovia, London
Format: Solo exhibition
Catalogue: Featuring a newly commissioned essay by Joseph Constable, interviews with Ryuta Ushiro, Yasutaka Hayashi and Hsiao-Yu Lin, and installation photographs
Country: United Kingdom