Exploring the cove

  
I’ve just finished watching ‘The Cove’ and suggest you do too. Unless you have seen the controversial Academy Award-winning documentary already, in which case you’ll probably agree that herding thousands of dolphins into a secluded cove in Taiji, Japan, before harpooning them to death is both brutal and unnecessary.

Taiji, in Wakayama, is often regarded as the birthplace of Japanese whaling, with evidence revealing coastal hunts as far back as the 1600s. The picturesque small town boasts various monument to cetaceans, including a rather grand whale museum, as well as restaurants serving both whale and dolphin meat. Every year, Taiji fishermen herd more than 20,000 dolphins into a small cove where representatives from all over the country  wait to select a small amount for the world’s marine parks and aquariums. The remaining dolphins are moved to the now-infamous cove for slaughter. Due to increasing international scrutiny, the shallows of the cove are now largely covered by bright tarpaulins , which merely highlight the sea of blood beyond.

Despite testing dangerously high in mercury levels (hello jeremy piven!), Taiji dolphin meat is distributed to shops around Japan (above right, selling for a mere 200 yen per cut) and quite often falsely labelled as other seafood or whale meat to increase sales. In their defence, the Taiji fishermen are quick to assert that their catch is well within IWC limits, which may have led the activists to focus on the issue of mercury in the meat, rather than the barbaric manner in which the dolphins are killed.

With a trailer that’s more spy thriller than animal rights crusade and ongoing distribution problems in Japan, it’s quite easy to dismiss the film as some sort of anti-Japan propaganda flick. There’s been all sorts of responses which question the accuracy of the film’s claims, but no-one can doubt the vivid red sea, nor the footage of dolphins flailing in the shallows while blood trails behind them.

One Japanese new report shows a rather unbiased look at the cause and the foreign protesters, after which a commentator declared:

There is a clash between culture and emotion.

I fully understand the desire to maintain cultural traditions, but after viewing the film, the activists should probably play on Japanese emotions and seek wider support from within Japan itself. More so than just one man standing in the crowded Shibuya crossing with a tv screen showing the atrocities, they need to make Japanese youth aware of what happens in Taiji and ideally, inspire them to take action. Casting aside the ongoing issue of ‘scientific’ whaling, Japan is, after all, the same nation that bestowed residency on Tama-chan, a bearded Arctic seal that turned up in Tokyo’s Tama River in 2003. By appealing to the country’s love of cute creatures, there may be  some way to maintain cultural traditions while finding a more humane solution to the culls. …Hell, anything would be more effective than this two-minute celebrity-filled PSA which, while great in theory, pretty much just preaches to the choir:

Although when Tony Soprano tells you his friend doesn’t belong in captivity, you can’t help but want to do as he tells you…

If you don’t have time to watch the film, try photojournalist Boyd Harnell’s chilling article from 2007, Eyewitness to Slaughter in Japan’s Killing Coves, which reads much like the film unfolds, or check the Guardian’s photo gallery.

Photos: Dolphin meat from Aisha_n, Meiji-era whalers from Julian Cochrane. Robert Gilhooly has a wealth of Taiji photos here.

Colouring with kozyndan

Well, just Kozy, actually. The Yamanashi-born illustrator (real name: Kozue) is in town this weekend with her husband, Dan Kitchens, as part of their first solo UK show And Then There Were None at the tiny Nelly Duff gallery on Columbia Road.

Kozy is pictured above with The Best Sushi in Town, an all-new panoramic which debuted simultaneously at the show and at a group exhibition in New York. The 1.7-metre-long work is their 17th panoramic piece and shows seafood masquerading as sushi chefs serving humans to their unsuspecting customers while a giant octopus (squid?) traps divers for dinner, all in a sushi bar under the sea. The true beauty’s in the detail, such as a tiny bunny-faced fish on a sushi-train plate, the fact that one of the fish is dressed as a sumo wrestler or even the tanned gyaru (blonde Japanese surfer ‘gal’) dining on her own. All of which you see better here.

According to Kozyndan:

People don’t know what the secret ingredient is and they don’t really care. All they know is this is the best sushi in town!

It actually comes from a rather despairing feeling we have knowing that people are literally eating fish species to extinction, particularly blue fin tuna…because people have taken to consuming huge quantities of sushi.

And Then There Were One also includes two limited edition silkscreen prints, other prints including the brilliant Takadanobaba on Acid and a new selection of Kozy’s abstract kaleidoscopic paintings. These works mark quite a change in direction from their most famous prints, although similar themes still abound (are they sharks? and possibly amoeba?) and there’s still plenty of detail to get lost in. When I asked Kozy why the new paintings were so different, she explained that if you keep doing the same thing over and over, you just get bored.

There was also a dreamy and somewhat whimsical colouring book from 2004 called Lactaid Dreams (£8), which they had apparently wanted to make for some time. In response to people questioning the themes in their work, the book opens with a kind foreward: …This is a colouring book, damn it! It isn’t supposed to be analysed. It’s supposed to be coloured!

There’s lots of Japanese imagery (both modern and traditional), crazy animals,  and simple outlines just bursting with detail. Oh yes, and there’s plenty of bunnies:

As for Kozy, she was friendly, warm and keen to get started on signing all the prints for their London fans. She was very positive about the exhibition, although she did seem a little perplexed about London’s low-brow art culture:

The response to the brief exhibition has been great, but it’s different here. In the US, or even Australia, low-brow art is much more popular.

She also told me how Kozyndan produce their work. Generally, Kozy produces the initial outlines, which Dan then fills in with the smaller details and characters. The pair work in layers on Photoshop, rather than Illustrator which she said ‘many people use, but I find too difficult!’.

Each piece goes back and forth between the pair with both Kozy and Dan adding their own touches in a composite process to produce each Kozydan piece.

The only sad note of my visit was discovering one of my favourite works, the SARS-inspired Chinatown panoramic - where citizens of Chinatown fight an approaching virus with what looks like dumplings/steamed buns, while Peking ducks stroll casually away from a knife-wielding chef - is no longer available. Why didn’t I buy it at Melbourne’s Outre gallery, so many years ago? Here’s a taster of the full print:

After And Then There Were None finishes on Saturday, Kozyndan are off to Barcelona before heading home via a few other stops. You can find more of their work at their website or much of their back catalogue (and personal travel shots) at Flickr.

Read more on the UK exhibition here.

All pictures from Kozydan’s Flickr except the Lactaid Dreams photos from my copy, which I’m tempted to slice apart and frame. Thank you, Kozy-san!

Shonen knife… forever?

Banana chips for you!
Banana chips for me!
In the afternoon, Banana chips and tea.

They came, I saw, I showered them with banana chips. Literally. My plans for a banana chip taste-off (chewy! chili! chocolate dipped!) were dashed when another journo turned up, so I ended handing over a load of dried banana treats like some kinda crazed fan.

I guess I am though… There’s something about their catchy melodies, nonsensical lyrics and infectious rock posturing that gets me every time. They even have a new tune about one of my favourite coprophagic animals, the Capybara.

Enjoy the show below, or click here for the interview at Artrocker where Naoko declares after three decades, she’s in it for the long run. It’s Shonen Knife forever, my friends!

Rockin’ photo from Ryry9379, yawnin’ capybara from g-na.

Hatoyama’s shirt: how did it ever come to this?

Japanprobe today reported Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s hideous plaid shirt of many colours is now on sale for US$500. Presenting…

It appears Shanghai-based shirtsmyway.com has latched on to the disastrous piece of work, labelling PM Hatoyama a ‘fashion hero’ for ‘daring to be different’.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear you. Props to him for daring to wear something so hideous at a televised event. But in offering a limited edition run of these ‘hatoyama shirts’, the bespoke shirt company is effectively inflicting another 50 of these shirts onto the world.

And that can’t be good.

Read more about PM Hatoyama’s crazy career here.

Fish story’s going to save the world one day

Well, maybe not. But it is a catchy song… and I do like a Karate Kid homage as much as the next person. It’s just a little long for a sci-fi/comedy/drama about a punk song saving the world. Although since I missed it at the Terracotta Film Festival earlier in the year, I’m glad it’s getting a limited release (try London’s ICA).  Read more on Fish Story over at Little White Lies.

Japanese Casey Ryback shot from Third Window Films.

The solitude of ravens

The British Journal of Photography has named Japanese photographer Masahisa Fukase’s 1986 Karasu (Ravens) as the best photobook of the past 25 years*. According to the BJP:

The book is a mournful reflection on Fukase’s past relationship, but has also been interpreted as an allegorical critique of modern industrialised society.

Through dark, grainy images of karasu, Fukase chronicles a lonesome trip to his hometown in Hokkaido in the late 70s while deep in the throes of divorce from his wife/former muse.

Fukase is said to have first become engrossed by the brooding karasu as he sat aboard the train from Tokyo, not knowing his collection would one day be hailed an obscure masterpiece by British critics. Despite three sold-out editions and a revised, slightly more impressionistic name (The Solitude of Ravens), Fukase’s work has remained largely unknown until this recent accolade.

Karasu are plentiful in Japan, particularly in the cities where special anti-karasu nets are used to protect domestic rubbish from being strewn about the streets. In Japanese mythology, they are said to represent foreboding and dangerous times ahead. I had always translated the word karasu as simply crow, rather than the more mysterious raven, but the Japanese word can apparently mean both black birds. It will take someone far more ornithological than me to know which is actually represented in Fukase’s book.

On a melancholy note**, Fukase has remained in a coma since the early 1990s. He is said to have fallen down stairs while drunk, which merely adds another level of sadness and solitude to his work.

*The Guardian subeditors may have been skeptical about the BJP’s choice of Kurasu. Their article by Sean O’Hagan, Masahisa Fukase’s Raavens: the best photobook of the past 25 years? is a pretty clear example of poorly-chosen punctuation, considering the overall positive tone of the piece.

**On a totally geeky linguistic note, did you know the collective noun for ravens is an unkindness? I did not, until I heard The Unkindness of Ravens, a cool little London two-piece who tend to hang out in Camden.

Images from The Guardian and Mass Observer.

Japan’s PM yukio hatoyama… melting fast in the summer heat?

If you were the prime minister of a small nation with the world’s second largest GDP,  which, my friends, would be worse?

• A 67% disapproval rating, resulting in you being written off as a ‘lame duck premier’ by the Financial Times? 
• Having a character so weak your predecessor, Yasuhiro Nakasone, describes it as ‘sweet like soft ice cream that melts fast in the summer heat’? (I like ice cream, but I don’t think that’s a compliment. Especially for a guy who comes from a powerful Japanese dynasty not unlike the Kennedys).
  
• Being called ‘despicable and craven’ by the LA Times after displaying virtually no backbone when it comes to upholding campaign promises. In this case, Hatoyama promised to ask the US military to remove their base from Okinawa… only to later bow to Okinawan locals and ask them to pretty much just suck it up. Doesn’t he know they live longer than anyone else in the world? These folks have been sucking it up for years.
  

• Being married to an ex-actress?
• Ok, a crazy ex-actress.  When Miyuki Hatoyama’s not enjoying kimchi in Korea, she often ‘eats the sun for energy’.  She also believes she met Tom Cruise in an a former life.  Tom Cruise. When he was Japanese. And she went to Venus in a UFO. (This woman takes cuckoo to a whole new level. Not even a depraved manga artist could write this stuff).
• Inadvertently supporting the thriving pachinko parlour industry through a misguided baby bonus scheme.  Analysts from Daiwa believe families receiving Hatoyama’s Y13,000 (£96) monthly baby bonus in cash — instead of vouchers — to help with childcare costs are more likely to spend it on gambling, visiting theme parks or buying video games. 
• Having possibly the worst taste in fashion, ever. Seriously, EVER.

I say it’s all bad, and Japan deserves better. Junichiro Koizumi’s time in office was flawed, but at least the dude had style* (and celebrity friends).

Hatoyama masks from h yamamoto, kimchi pic from Korea.net, fashion shots from Huffington Post, Koizumi shots from AP & Google.

*I blame my mother and our 2009 pilgrimage to Graceland for my weakness toward fellow Elvis fans. Koizumi-san shares his birthday with the King, and in 2001 released a charity CD of hand-picked Elvis hits. He was but a poor prime minister with great taste in rock’n’roll.