Manami Uetake - Imagining Something Unknown

About

The exhibition is on view from February 26th until February 29th, 2020.

Manami Uetake’s work deals with individual and collective trauma, and how its memory can be meaningfully processed, both privately and publicly, officially and unofficially, a challenge to commemoration culture at large, a subject highly topical in Germany as well.

Prior to working in Berlin winter 2019/20 in preparation of this exhibition, Uetake has been investigating and documenting monuments in disaster-stricken areas of Fukushima, as well as the private effects.

In her latest work, Uetake deepens her inquiry, now especially focusing on the private ways trauma is processed and shared, its possibilities, but also its limits. Her installation of performative videos, conducted and filmed at SomoS, are based on a story of somebody losing their home in the Fukushima disaster. In the videos, the artist asked a random performer not deeply acquainted with the culture and the topic, to share their thoughts and feelings towards it in various media, to virtually put themselves in the victim’s situation, highlighting the challenges of conveying trauma and loss, and the quirks of memory and empathy.

The video installation conveys the difficulty of recounting experience, demonstrating the loss that the process of reiteration may bring about. Viscerally making clear the devastating difference between presence and absence, the video installation constitutes a sensitive inquiry into the mechanisms of memory and empathy; of reality and its fleeting representation, of things here today and gone tomorrow.

Imagining Something Unknown presents us with a layered contemplation of memory and remembrance, both socially, aesthetically and philosophically.

Find out more about Manami Uetake’s work on her homepage: http://manamiuetake.moo.jp

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Manami Uetake holds a M.A in Painting from Tokyo University of the Arts, Japan, 2018 and was a guest student at Chelsea College of the Arts in London, 2015. Uetake works within the mediums of photography, video and text to engage with her subjects on a personal level, but also as a critical tool for documenting contemporary societies at large. Her work deals with individual and collective trauma, and how its memory is processed both personally and publicly, especially with regard to public monuments.

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Opening Reception: Tuesday, February 25, 2020 6-9pm.
Duration: February 26-29, Tuesday-Saturday 2-7pm and by appointment.

SomoS, Kottbusser Damm 95, 1.0G, 10967, Berlin (U8 – Schönleinstraße).