GRAVE, CAKE, TAIL: IN CONVERSATION WITH EMIRI FUJIMOTO

The sculptures are pretty personal to me. But I’ve been thinking about experience and the retelling of the experience: how the retelling adapts to the current environment and situation, and how a moment of now and the past becomes mixed. So I’ve been thinking of my installation as an event of a previous event.

After one of the later installs, in a conversation with R, she said the install seems like a grave, and the audience is looking at a grave that is not theirs, nor their friends’ or families’. I want to create an experience that is self-aware of the medium.

I really appreciate Nathan Fielder's new season of The Rehearsal, where he narrates, “Ten minutes into this video, no one laughed, but this is supposed to be a comedy.”

Some materials found me. It’s like an encounter, often from my immediate surroundings. The materials are chosen and highlighted from an experience. Like object witnesses, they function as personal and coded documentation.

It’s like when you’re right at the exit, and there’s a souvenir shop before the door. There’s a cookie, a keychain, a postcard, etc. Each is an iteration or representation of the experience within this time and space. Which one do you choose to resonate with?

Susan Stewart mentions in On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection (1993) that a souvenir emphasizes the relationship between the owner and the object (the secondhand ownership), rather than the object’s history.

But yeah, I think the action, the becoming, the result, the situation of an object attracts me, something raw, used, happy, abandoned, celebrating, discarded, fading, moving forward, passing by, sitting still, enduring, holding potential energy.

Materials change in each project, but some more common ones in my works are construction materials like drywall, concrete, joint compound, and wire; soft clothing and furniture materials like scrap foam and fabric; and a mix of printed images and papier-mâché.

Pope.L said somewhere (I need to find the exact source) that if we have a karaoke night and everyone gets drunk and messed up and leaves, then the next morning, when you walk into the room, the mess is the documentation of the previous night.

I’ve been thinking about how using the image of documentation can regain its physicality back into space. But eventually, it will exist only as an image, and that image will get lost among all the data on some digital shelf, maybe in a messy corner.

The story all started because I wanted a rabbit tattoo. So I dressed up and let people use red Sharpies to draw bunnies on me, and in exchange, I would tell them a fun fact related to Chinese New Year. Then I thought, what if I could take the outfit apart and embed the documentation of the scribbles on my body? Then I drew the pattern on the wall, and it felt natural to cut the pattern once I drew it. I only cut the pattern for the tail, because catching the tail of something means catching the last essence of something in Chinese.

Then I fixed the wall, then burned all the furry pattern sculptures. And in front of the fire, I got the tattoo. The whole process took over a few months, but it wasn’t planned, it was more like, “oh, it makes sense for me to do this next.” I even forgot I originally wanted a tattoo of a rabbit during the process.

But such a process of cannibalization and reappropriation into a situation made me think, what objects do you choose to move forward with, and what do you choose to leave behind?

Now that it’s tattooed, it’s like a living documentation that permanently resides on my body until I die and leave my body or maybe I just die as my body dies. The work activates and lives again whenever someone asks, “Oh, do you have a tattoo?” and I’ll say, “Do you want to hear the story of my first (and only, for now) tattoo? It’s a bit long, but hear me out.”

E was like, “You should make a little zine of the whole story, then tattoo a QR code on your leg that leads to the digital version of it, so people can scan it and read about it.” And my other friend G said, “Then tattoo a Venmo QR code on the other leg for payment.” Obviously, I’m not doing that, but I very much enjoy the thought of it, and now it’s part of the whole Rabbit Year story.

I’m not sure if that’s the only place where the rabbit could finally rest. I really appreciate the question, it made me think about how my body takes up space, and where it would finally rest.

For that installation, I gave everyone a little note that said, “Meet me at the kitchen tomorrow,” and I verbally told them, “If I’m not there, meet me by the pond.” I was hiding from everyone that day, making sure no one saw me. That day was my birthday, but I didn’t make it public. I installed early in the morning of my birthday - my friend K helped me - and we quickly sneaked into the kitchen and placed the cake on the table.

I was thinking about a celebratory cake without an owner, something to initiate an event. I told K, “If someone eats it, please document it for me!” But yeah, in the end, no one ate it. C licked just a bit of the icing, she told me that later, quirkily. But people were aware that consuming the cake would erase the information.

If a cake is about celebration, then by consuming it, do we receive the blessings and happiness? Is the message in the image of the cake, or in the event and the act of purchasing, gathering, and consuming? Then, is preserving the cake a way of prolonging the final register or arrival of the blessings?

This installation was the first work I made after arriving at Cranbrook and having my own studio for the first time. I moved all of my personal belongings out and piled them in front of my studio, leaving only the furniture provided by the school in the room. From that furniture, I built shoes or leg extensions.

For the invitation to the installation, I would walk up to someone and say, “Hey,” have a bit of random small talk, then say, “Oh, there’s something on your shoe,” - SLAP! - and run away as fast as I could. That was the invitation to view my installation.

Some people later commented that the invitation felt so joyful, which contrasted with how somber the installation itself was. But I found that tension - the built-up expectation versus the disappointing reality - really exciting. I mean, maybe this installation was a true disappointment or failure, but that irony is what sparks something for me.

It’s so much easier to find second-hand trash on the streets in New York! Honestly, I think I’m also more willing to slow down when I’m in New York, because life here is faster.

My friends and I did a performance at a warehouse alongside about a hundred other artists and makers, and it was pretty maximal. I made a functional clothing rack, it had multiple components, but they formed one body.

At Cranbrook, I tend to make more precarious compositions, less sturdy, a bit more spread out. I think being here made me want to create works that feel tighter, more like one body. Also, I’ve been thinking about where and when to install what - LOL, very vague.

I really appreciate how you described the color palettes: very bodily and softly violent. Both cute but aggressive, friendly but violent?! I try to retain the original color of a material, and many of the colors come from the aesthetics I liked as a kid like colorful baby outfits or those kitschy, cute Chinese or Japanese product packagings.

But yeah, I’ve been fascinated by a description of Liz Magor’s work: “There is something about the colors of Liz Magor’s sculptures. The objects seem to be blushing. They seem to know that they’re on view and not entirely comfortable with it.”

I still want to create experiences that are site-responsive. My friend K and I have been thinking about finding temporary spaces to install work. Maybe start making music?! And yeah, my friend P and I promised each other we’d make a horror movie together. We’ve been thinking when you’re on set and shooting a horror scene, doesn’t that moment of acting or manifesting slightly become real horror for a moment??!! But yeah, we’ll see how much of this actually happens. Oh, and of course, Spam Spa. <3