"0/4≠0" Saori Kubo, Kaori Oguma January 2010, 1 - January 4, 2010
Venue: Art Gallery T+
Date: December 2010, 1 - January 4, 2010
Exhibitor:
Saori Kubo (3rd year, School of Art and Design)
Kaori Oguma (2nd year, School of Art and Design)
It's 0/4, but what's left is not 0.
T+review
I, the two exhibitors, and the majority of the visitors are all students at the University of Tsukuba, at an age when society sees us as in the prime of our youth. However, youth is something we look back on later, and even if others tell us we are in our youth, it is something fleeting that those who are in it cannot truly feel it.
The theme of this exhibition, "0/4≠0", is youth. Four high school students appear, each of whom falls in love, but it doesn't come to fruition. The message conveyed by the exhibitor is that even if you experience heartbreak, your experience of love is never zero, and this can be seen from the exhibition name.
A bittersweet, bittersweet love story. The events are told through illustrations and text, about 4 pages per row, hanging from the ceiling of the gallery in four rows. The way the protagonists' expressions and gazes are cut out is almost like a photograph. The text doesn't seem like a narrator of a story, but like a drama filled with conversation and emotions. Each row is composed of only illustrations or only text. Viewers can walk sideways slowly to watch the course of these love stories.
I try to remember the romance I had when I was in high school. Although there were many events, all that remains in my head are photographs, and they are out of focus. Of course, I can't remember all the conversations we had, only fragments.
Each love and youth is expressed and exhibited in a way that encourages viewing and acceptance, rather than understanding. As university students, our "high school years" are a milestone we pass through, and while they can be viewed objectively as if we were someone else, they are also events that remain somewhere in our hearts, like a smoldering burnt mark. What remains is certainly not zero, but "≠0".
(Hiroko Haraguchi)
