things around the memory of those girls from that trip 2021-, ongoing project based on chit-chatting sessions about Peruvian school trip memory 
I was born in Lima, Peru, into a family of Japanese descent. When I was little, I moved to Japan with my Japanese mother and I grew up having inner conflict concerning where my identity belonged. When I lived in Lima for three years from 27 years old to 30 years old, every time I talked with Peruvian women of my age, I could imagine myself being one of them - a parallel world where I would have grown up as a Peruvian girl. But in reality, when childhood experiences quite common among Peruvians came up in conversations, I was never able to participate. A typical example is a school trip to Machu Picchu, a common memory for Peruvians of my age who spent their time as a student in Lima, which is for me a serious deficiency. In order to raise the quality of my mimicry of a Peruvian character, I will invent the memory of such a school trip so that I can take part in those conversations. This project is an attempt to draw contours of the culture of a given place by referencing personal memories and life event experiences. Process: 1. Meet a number of Peruvian women of my age and interview them about their own experiences of school trips to Machu Picchu to collect common episodes, while also collecting photographs and diaries. 2. Install those stories into my memory and invent false recollections. 3. Organize an imaginary "reunion of old friends from the trip" with Peruvian women of my age who actually do not know each other; film the nostalgic conversations about "our" trip; we chat as if we were on the trip together. 4. Visit Machu Picchu by myself and "re-experience” all those events talked about at the meeting. 5. Compose an installation that centers around the video of the "reunion" along with photographs taken by other people and myself and documents such as tickets, maps, etc. * At the “reunion,” everyone narrates their own personal memories as they are, while I establish the general direction of our “reminiscent talk” and certain key topics in advance. I suppose our conversation will make sense even though it may contain minor contradictions, because everyone’s experiences must be quite similar. I myself also speak as one of the "old friends” on the same trip, but in the video, you cannot tell who is a "liar". The "staged-ness" of the session is suggested by various details, such as each participant's occasional gaze at the script. |