Artes Mundi/Meiro Koizumi’s Angels of Testimony

On Thursday 17^th June 2021, the jury for the 9^th iteration of the UK’s largest contemporary arts prize – Artes Mundi –  voted unanimously to divide a £60,000 prize fund among all six shortlisted candidates.

On this landmark award, stated by Art Asia Pacific to be ‘the highest-valued contemporary art award in the United Kingdom’, the Artes Mundi jurors commented: “Reflecting on 2020 into the present, this has been a time of enormous social, political and economic upheaval, and as a jury, we have reached a collective, unanimous decision to award the Artes Mundi 9 Prize to all six participating artists: Firelei Báez, Dineo Seshee Bopape, Meiro Koizumi, Beatriz Santiago Muñoz, Prabhakar Pachpute and Carrie Mae Weems.”

We were especially delighted to learn of Meiro Koizumi’s award after having awarded a Daiwa Foundation Small Grant to support the presentation of his work at Artes Mundi.

Note: The remainder of this article discusses war crimes and traumatic events that some readers may find disturbing.

Meiro’s award-winning Artes Mundi video installation – the hauntingly titled Angels of Testimony – presents a striking intersection between Japanese national history and memory. Angels of Testimony introduces the testimony of Hajime Kondo, a 99-year old veteran of the Second Sino-Japan War (1937-45) who chose to publicly speak of his knowledge and experience of war atrocities he witnessed and was complicit in.

Following a video showcase of Kondo’s personal testimony, the installation then leads the audience to a jarring video interview between Meiro and an ailing Kondo, followed by a final phase that presents Kondo’s interview alongside two larger screens showing connective performances developed by teenagers in workshops with Meiro. Profoundly emotional, the installation delicately engages with a truly contentious aspect of Japanese history while positing new methods to facilitate its representation.

Speaking at the 19^th May instalment of the Artes Mundi At The Table event, Meiro expressed that, since his childhood in Japan, he has felt a sense of societal guilt lingering from the post-war period. Within Angels of Testimony, he sought to capture this guilt and aimed to synthesise Kondo’s dementia with what he called a ‘wider condition of social amnesia in Japan’.

It was noted by one panellist that Meiro’s signature trait is ‘the moment of overlap between sharing trauma and achieving narrative which works to ethnically challenge viewers’, facilitating confrontations that feel ‘particularly conducive to the absorption of history’.

With war memory remaining a contentious issue in Japan, Meiro commented it has been difficult to showcase Angels of Testimony in his home country, citing rising nationalistic sentiment with collective denials of wartime atrocity. Despite this, he reiterated the importance of showing such challenging work in order to recognise this troubling aspect of history. Like the young performers who perform the veteran’s testimony in the final segment of Angels of Testimony, Meiro stated he will now move forward into his next evocative work carrying Kondo’s trauma and scars.

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The overwhelming reception to Angels of Testimony and a spectacular result for Meiro at Artes Mundi 9 is expected to be conductive toward other Japanese artists seeking audiences for their work both in Japan and overseas.

Meiro Koizumi’s Angels of Testimony is currently being exhibited at National Museum Cardiff. For those unable to make the trip in present circumstances, the Artes Mundi website (linked below) is also hosting a full guided tour of the experience.

Exhibition of another Meiro project – Sacrifice – is also planned for when lockdown restrictions are eased in Cardiff later this year. In connection with Angels of Testimony, Sacrifice, will also focus on the representation of national histories and memories of armed conflict. Visitors will engage with an audio-visual account of the Iraqi war using virtual reality headsets.

Having followed Meiro’s work closely in recent years, we are delighted with his success at Artes Mundi and will continue to follow his future projects and installations with great interest.

Further Reading

Meiro Koizumi’s website:

https://www.meirokoizumi.com

Artes Mundi Winners Announcement:

https://artesmundi.org/artes-mundi-9-prize-winners-revealed/

Angels of Testimony at Artes Mundi (including video tour):

https://artesmundi.org/meiro-koizumi/

Artes Mundi Podcast: At The Table with Meiro Koizumi:

https://artesmundi.org/videos-podcasts/listen-at-the-table-with-meiro-koizumi/

Recently Awarded Daiwa Foundation Small Grants and Awards:

http://armanios.co.uk/dev/daiwa2/daiwa-foundation-small-grants-and-awards/recently-funded