Proof of Existence / 6 June 2012
I traveled part of the way to Hakone under a poster with an image in grey, of cracks in a pavement - Proof of Existence. The Hakone area seems stuffed with museums and galleries that will tempt me back; this poster was for Shinji Omaki's Proof of Existence.
Passing the Hakone Open-Air Museum I saw evidence of artworks that will need to be explored. Plentiful signs and posters pointed to other inviting destinations; Hakone brought itself to my attention and certainly has something to live up to, next time I come.
Standing in front of the naked musician blowing an oversized horn, I presumed it was an homage to the real life naked trumpeter.
This one was small - less than hobbit-sized and on loan from, yes, somewhere in Hakone. A bronze statue in the Marunouchi Street Gallery in Tokyo, he was modestly shaded by a tree, small in every detail (bar the musical instrument), and looking very comfortable with his nudity.
If I am frequenting all the wrong places to find disability culture, it is not just the lure of the 'mainstream' famous arts, it is also their accessibility and plentiful abundance. I continue to question the existence of disability culture yet daily hope to find it hidden in plain sight. Invisible only because of a culture chasm.
Yet is a society without the need for disability culture good or bad? Is this taking integration too far? Does it free up disabled people or oppress them?
This experiment of trying to find Disability Arts and artists 'from the ground up' needs some control data to line up against. Maybe I need to visit London as a foreigner and see how far I get.
Those universal sounds, uttered by
deaf people signing, alert me. Here
on the train I travel, wheels on wheels
back to the crowd, quietly watching
window reflection, unobserved.
Instant curiosity lifts heads
momentarily; and flashed tension
comes, goes, never was. I get the
outrageous idea of a culture
where disability just isn't
a concept; a culture where people
are just and gloriously people.
Keywords: access issues,equality,museums and galleries,normality,other cultures,outdoor art,poetry,tokyo,utopia
Comments
richard downes
/good point about the need for disability culture, interaction, participation, etc.
I recently attended the South Banks' Festival of The World.
there was a section called choices and rights. it reflected on disabled people's arts and culture and our history of struggle.
I was pleased to see it. Pleased to see our history reflected but felt somewhat offended that we were separate, fenced off, not included in the same way.
Would the experience have been as powerful if we were just merged into an ambivalent lump of art?
I think its a difficult thing to come down on one side or the other.
richard downes
/Perturbed a Witness was
The Day
I saw God
In a crack in the pavement
Perturbed the Witness was
The Day
I saw Dad
Walk past us both. Dead.
From time to time i stop and talk to a Jehovah's Witness - a black guy with a round smiley face and generally positive demeanour. He knows from occasions like this that whilst i stop and talk i do not believe - even when i see. Your reference to a crack in the pavement reminded me of this.
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