This reading event is an extended activity of the previous exhibition "Our Everyday—Our Borders".
14 Years Old & World & Border embodies the outcome of workshops conducted by Motoyuki Shitamichi with secondary school students in various Asian countries and regions starting in 2013. In these workshops, he had dialogues with students, looking for their ”borders” in daily lives; using newspapers as a medium, these tiny voices are documented and published along with important news. The artist cut out the newspaper clips, and edited into this book 14 Years Old & World & Border, which includes articles collected from students in Hong Kong that was posted on Sunday Ming Pao.
14 Years Old & World & Border is a “travelling book”. It is not to be sold but rather to be circulated nomadically. The artist hopes that the book could break through the boundaries of an art museum, letting the tiny stories circulate, travelling from one’s world to another.
We sincerely invite you to join us to read and exchange with Motoyuki Shitamichi, and discover the borders between individuals, spaces and societies of 14-year-olds around the world—borders that are more than the physical boundaries.
Motoyuki Shitamichi
Motoyuki Shitamichi graduated from Musashino Art University's Department of Painting in 2001. Profoundly interested in narratives that have largely been forgotten and buried by our everyday lives and concerns, the works of Motoyuki Shitamichi neither document scenes nor archive historical facts but rather tend to address the issues of the everyday through the exploration of personal and public histories. For example, Shitamichi has spent four years travelling around Japan, surveying and photographing the remains of gun emplacements, fighter hangars, and other military structures, finally publishing these works in the "Bunkers series” (2001–2005). He has also photographed the Torii (the Japanese shrine gates) extant in America, Taiwan, Russia, Korea, and other locations from the era of the Japanese colonial occupation of these countries, as seen in his renowned “Torii series” (2006–2012).
His works are exhibited in both local and international exhibitions, including "Our Everyday—Our Borders", Tai Kwun, Hong Kong (2018-2019); “Gwangju Biennale 2019”, Gwangju, South Korea (2018). He is currently participating in Venice Biennale as one of the representatives of Japan.
Rooftop Institute
Rooftop Institute (RT) originated from the idea of the “rooftop” as a traditional space of communal learning in Hong Kong; its mission is to develop a series of imaginings and practices enacted towards the concepts of space, community, learning and exchange.
RT’s programme is intended to develop artist-in-residence schemes. It invites Asian and local artists to conduct artistic research and discussions on contemporary social and cultural issues; for instance, to touch upon topics like colony, borders, migration, foreign workers and mixed marriage. Rooftop Institute received from Hong Kong Arts Development Council the Certificate of Merit of Award for Arts Education (non-school division) in 2018.
