#67: Shingo Yoshida

Shingo Yoshida considers the world as his studio and therefore a place of constant creation. Travelling around the globe, he finds myths, legends, people and places which are easily over looked and matches them to his creative micro world. With an aesthetic gaze and the most fanciful understanding of life, Yoshida enacts as if he was playing Hide and Seek in the world alone: while hiding himself he seeks the hidden.

Shingo Yoshida, we first met at Based in Berlin in 2011, just comes back from Siberia to premiere his latest film:

The End of Day and Beginning of The World, Siberia-Chukotka, Russia 2015, 20:00 min
This project at the Russian Far East, namely the Siberian regions of Chukotka and Beringia, was inspired by local raven folk tales. The “Chukchi” people showed us “Yaranga”, their tents out of the cities. On our way we saw Eskimos ancient housing made of whale bones. To the North pole and Arctic regions we took meat and bread as sacrificial offerings to nature and the ravens to thank them for their protection during the trip. There is a junction where the Arctic Circle crosses the 180th meridian. The latter runs vertically to set the basis for the International Date Line, which separates two consecutive calendar days.

Further Yoshida presents:

¿Sabe usted algo de la isla Friendship?(What Do You Know About Friendship Island?), Isla toto, Chile 2012, 33:00 min
Friendship is a mysterious island at the Archipiélago de las Guitecas (Chile) which does not exist on the map. People from the south know the island by rumors that link Friendship to miraculous healings and OVNI/UFO phenomena. Toto Island is part of the same archipelago to which Shingo travelled with an improvised manual for basic communication, containing ready made phrases in Spanish regarding the purpose of his trip. The manual, an old radio and his video camera would be the only means to establish contacts and collect information on the Friendship enigma.

I Prepared The Perfect Answer That You Wanted, Amazon- Oiyakaha, Brasil 2010, 12:00 min
Due to unexpected events in a challenging jungle environment, Yoshida’s three-week survival sojourn comes to by chance and lacking running water or electricity prompted a new regeneration of the self and reconstruction of circumstances, via self-destructive behavior. The result is a work of raw, unrelenting realism.

 

Shingo Yoshida (b. 1974 in Tokyo, Japan) currently lives and works in Berlin. He has completed residencies at Villa Arson Nice France – Centre National d’Art Contemporain 2013 and awarded the Fellowship of Overseas Study Programme for Artists by the Agency for Cultural Affairs by the Japanese Government 2013. Yoshida received his MA with highest honors from Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Art, Villa Arson in Nice France in 2004 and was the 2007 recipient Post-graduate diploma – Program La Seine of Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris. His work has been shown at Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2007, 2012), at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo MAC, Santiago, Chile (2012) and at the 60th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Germany, (2014) among others.

Shingo Yoshida’s web site: www.shingoyoshida.com