A live performance by Aki Sasamoto, followed by an in conversation with Keiko Okamura, curator of Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT).
Drawing inspiration from televised cooking shows and street food carts, Sasamoto’s performance will unfold as a live, improvised act of movement and drawing. One of four performances taking place over the course of the exhibition, each will centre around a custom-built, oversized griddle and the seemingly unremarkable, yet intricate manipulation of ingredients across the griddle's surface, visible in a three-metre-long, angled mirror.
Following the performance, Sasamoto and Okamura will convene in the gallery for an in conversation. Having recently worked together on Sasamoto’s mid-career retrospective at MOT, titled Life Laboratory, the artist and Okamura will discuss the development of Sasamoto’s new commission within the context of the artist’s broader practice.
Co-organised with Japan House London, the event will be introduced by Sam Thorne, Director General of Japan House London.
Event Timings:
- 2–3 pm: Performance
- 3–3.30 pm: Break
- 3.30–4.30 pm: In conversation
This event is part of Grilled Diagrams, a major new commission by Aki Sasamoto (b. 1980, Kanagawa, Japan). The exhibition comprises a site-sensitive installation that developed from Sasamoto’s observations of daily life, as well as her curiosity about systems and processes– in this case, the experience of cooking large quantities of food on outdoor griddles. Incorporating everyday items and contemporary detritus, her meticulously staged installation functions as a prompt or score for structured improvisation: challenging conventional definitions of sculpture and instead inviting active participation in her unfolding narratives.
Sasamoto’s work incisively probes the tension between disorder and control. Her performances, which are often staged as vivid and digressive monologues, weave together fables, anecdotes and autobiographical fragments, inviting her audiences to retune their perceptions of the seemingly mundane.
