{"id":78,"date":"2024-03-15T11:03:20","date_gmt":"2024-03-15T11:03:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/keithwhittle.org\/?p=78"},"modified":"2026-02-03T03:21:58","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T03:21:58","slug":"chim%e2%86%91pom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/keithwhittle.org\/?p=78","title":{"rendered":"Chim\u2191Pom"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why Open?<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 a solo exhibition at White Rainbow, Fitzrovia, London by the renowned artist collective\u00a0Chim\u2191Pom<\/strong>\u00a0(formed 2005, Tokyo, Japan).<\/p>\n

Comprising Ryuta Ushiro, Yasutaka Hayashi, Ellie, Masataka Okada, Motomu Inaoka, and Toshinori Mizuno, Chim\u2191Pom\u2019s work includes interventions through performance, video, painting, installation, curating and organising events. Sharp social critique underpins the group\u2019s work, and the collective is unafraid to cause controversy in the service of their message. As Christopher Y. Lew, Associate Curator at the Whitney Museum, New York, has stated: \u2018the group negotiates a difficult line \u2013 they do not make the direct assertions of activists but rather offer an ambiguous voice that is both complicit and critical.<\/p>\n

To date, some of the collective\u2019s actions have included: in 2008, skywriting the word \u2018PIKA\u2019 \u2013 a mimetic word in Japanese for \u2018flash\u2019 \u2013 over Hiroshima where the atomic bomb was dropped; in 2011, a guerrilla style \u2018updating\u2019 of Taro Okamoto\u2019s mural depicting the history of nuclear exposure in Japan, in order to better reflect Japan\u2019s post-Fukushima nuclear reality; in 2012, as part of the collective Don\u2019t Follow The Wind, the group entered the Fukushima Nuclear Zone and installed an exhibition across abandoned properties in the area \u2013 the exhibition remains inaccessible while radiation levels remain.<\/p>\n

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In recent years, the group has realised projects in cities around the world, reflecting on the role of public space and borders.\u00a0Why Open?<\/em>\u00a0brings together a selection of work from projects in the Fukushima Nuclear Zone, the U.S.\u2013 Mexico border, in Tokyo and in Taiwan.<\/p>\n

White Rainbow\u2019s doorbell hosts the first work in the exhibition:\u00a0Silent Bells<\/em>\u00a0(2017) is activated when a visitor presses the entry buzzer, which connects directly to an abandoned house in Fukushima, still unsafe to visit due to radiation. Pushing White Rainbow\u2019s doorbell causes the inaccessible doorbell in Fukushima to ring, reverberating in the gallery space.<\/p>\n

Barely visible in the darkened main gallery is\u00a0The Grounds<\/em>\u00a0(2016), which comprises a video and a plaster cast sculpture of Chim\u2191Pom member Ellie\u2019s footprints. The work is part of a wider project called\u00a0The Other Side<\/em>\u00a0(2016). In response to Ellie being denied entry to the U.S., the group went to the Tijuana border and discovered a maze of unofficial and illegal tunnels. Inspired by this, the group dug below the border, and Ellie planted her feet on soil below the border, from which they created the plaster cast sculpture. Additionally, the collective spent time with a Tijuana family, and built a tree house in their garden. The group humorously titled the house\u00a0USA Visitor Center<\/em>, which only served to highlight how inaccessible the country is to many, including Ellie\u00a0 herself. A new work,\u00a0Asshole of Tokyo<\/em>(2018) is a film projection. The group opened a manhole cover in Tokyo and filmed what they saw. The idea of a whole network of underground tunnels connects back to the Tijuana tunnels, but also to inaccessible Fukushima. Chim\u2191Pom ask: why not reach Fukushima by underground tunnel?<\/p>\n

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More recently, the group opened up their studio in Tokyo to the public, removing the doors to create a new kind of public space. They called the project\u00a0Chim\u2191Pom Street<\/em>\u00a0(2017). This work led to one of their most ambitious projects to date:\u00a0\u9053 [Street]<\/em>\u00a0(2018) at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts. This project is represented in the main gallery space by a 3-metre slab of asphalt. Titled\u00a0Is Artistic Exchange a Crime?<\/em>\u00a0(2018), the work is a physical relic of an ambitious social project. Inspired by the Sunflower Movement in 2014 \u2013 a student movement in which participants took over the Taiwanese parliament for one month \u2013 Chim\u2191Pom constructed a new 200m long street, which extended from the museum entrance out in to a public street. Chim\u2191Pom conducted interviews with these students, and were struck by one person\u2019s story. The student in question simply tried to open a door in the Legislative Yuan (Taiwan\u2019s Parliament building) and was stunned to find it unlocked. They asked: \u2018Why was it open?\u2019 The rest of the students flooded in and occupied the building. This account gave rise to Chim\u2191Pom\u2019s project at the Museum.<\/p>\n

Chim\u2191Pom\u2019s new street asked: \u2018Who owns national institutions?\u2019 \u2018What is the public?\u2019 The work functioned as an alternative public space \u2013 the group invited people to contribute ideas for how the space was used. The graffiti present on the slab of asphalt is a contribution by a Taiwanese artist, which critiques the Taiwanese government\u2019s efforts to crack down on artistic exchange. Chim\u2191Pom held a block party on the street, using this to subvert the rules of assembly and public protest, in turn creating a space subject to its own rules and regulations, distinct from the museum and from the public street outside. White Rainbow\u2019s cinema space becomes an installation archive of this project, incorporating an architectural model, banners, objects and photographs, alongside video documentation of Ellie\u2019s speech inaugurating the street.<\/p>\n

Why Open?<\/em>\u00a0testifies to the group\u2019s openness to the world around them \u2013 in their 13 years as a collective, Chim\u2191Pom have continually placed themselves in complex situations and contested territories, in order to ask those difficult questions that others might not.<\/p>\n

The accompanying exhibition catalogue on Chim\u2191Pom includes a newly commissioned essay by writer Joseph Constable, interviews with Ryuta Ushiro, Yasutaka Hayashi and Hsiao-Yu Lin, and installation photographs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chim\u2191Pom\u00a0(formed 2005, Tokyo, Japan)<\/p>\nRead More<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":338,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-projects","col-md-4 col-sm-6"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/keithwhittle.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Chim-Pom.01.jpeg?fit=672%2C448&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/keithwhittle.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/keithwhittle.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/keithwhittle.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keithwhittle.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keithwhittle.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/keithwhittle.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3336,"href":"https:\/\/keithwhittle.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions\/3336"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keithwhittle.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/keithwhittle.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keithwhittle.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keithwhittle.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}