Nightwatch (Anti-Militarism Rallies in Tokyo) 2020
Video/Audio collage
2 minutes 35 seconds
“Nightwatch” is an experimental video collage composed by 4 channels dividing a screen with slight time-lags between each other. The footages are documentations I shot in the anti-militarism rallies in Tokyo against the revision of the Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution (which has prohibited the nation from owing military nor taking part in a war).
After the big earthquake, tsunami, and Fukushima nuclear accidents, Japanese society rapidly drifted to the right because of the fear of uncertainty and pushed the political argument about the amendment. What I witnessed in those movements were not just a simple conflict between the right and the left but even grass-rooted movements by citizens were taken by sectionalism of old left parties. The fear of disorder and the desire for order might be the nature of our mind but it would soak into and kill the autonomy of people from both outside and inside.
What I represented in this collage is the disorder that I actually watched and experienced on the streets. It might be chaotic, anxious, hostile, and uncomfortable. But it is what we need to protect from the desire for order, as the dynamism of rebellion and revolution is the fundamental part to keep a democratic society democratic.