Living on the Border, Facing a Dilemma
Nakao Tomomichi

Asian society has recently undergone a series of drastic changes,
and likewise womenʼs living conditions in these societies. In thisexhibition, we not only examine the lives of female artists based in Asia
but also female artists who, for a variety of reasons, have left their homecountries, and the countless works these women have distilled fromtheir lives over the last approximately 30 years. Though the exhibition,organized by ﬁve Japanese curators, is rooted in a selective view fromthe present, it is an attempt to locate the role of Asian women artists
in history, and to relativize a male- and Western-centric focus. At thesame time, we have tried to shed light on pressing issues that confront
everyone, regardless of their gender. While two of the curators, Kokatsu
Reiko and Rawanchaikul Toshiko, have undertaken a comprehensive
discussion containing detailed information on the exhibition andoutlining trends inside and outside Asia, in this essay, I would like tooﬀer my personal views of the works on display and their signiﬁcance.
In 1984, Imelda Cajipe Endaya made the work[p. 106] in the Philippines. One year earlier Senator Benigno Aquino,Jr., the most vocal opponent of the Marcos regime, was assassinated atManila International Airport, which had fallen under the tight controlof the army. His widow, Corazon Aquino, was later sworn in as Asiaʼsﬁrst female president on the back of the EDSA Revolution in whichclose to one million citizens were roused to action. Clad in yellow, thesight of Aquino forming an “L” with her ﬁngers and holding her handhigh in the air remains an indelible memory. It was perhaps at thismoment, prompted by the earth-shaking actions of this vast number ofpeople, that marked the start of a new era for Asian women.1 Not longafter, Aung San Suu Kyi spoke to large crowds of people in Burma (now,Myanmar), and spurred the 8888 Uprising, which became a symbol ofconditions in the country; and 35-year-old Benazir Bhutto was sworn inas the ﬁrst female prime minister of an Islamic nation (Pakistan).

Starting with, which exudes an air of this era, theexhibition consists of works from throughout Asia.2 And with a totalof 111 works (204 pieces), it represents the largest collection of work by

Asian women artists ever shown in Japan. Moreover, 63 of the works
are part of the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum collection. Thus, in tracing
currents since the 80s through the works on display, it is also possible tofollow the evolution of this facility from its origins in the Fukuoka Art
Museum. After opening in 1979, the Fukuoka Art Museum launched
the Asian Art Show, which was held on four occasions once every ﬁveyears, and by acquiring works from these exhibitions, the museumwas able to build up a substantial collection of Asian art. This policy
was then adopted by the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, established to28｜

Essay 3 Nakao Tomomichi ｜house the collection, which since it opened in 1999 has attempted toreexamine Asian art from many diﬀerent perspectives in events like the. At the outset, however, the number of works byfemale artists in the collection was extremely small. In addition, in theﬁrst triennale, which focused on current conditions in Asia, only oneﬁfth of the participants were female (ten out of 55 people), and evenin the second event, which saw a substantial increase, only 14 out of
37 were women.3 Though further research into the social conditions

surrounding female artists in each country and region was warranted,
these ﬁgures suggest that the museum failed to focus enough on womenin its attempts to reexamine Asian art in a multifaceted manner. In
that sense, this historical retrospective of female artists, both within andwithout Asia, carries a great deal of signiﬁcance.
In visiting Asia, it quickly becomes evident that women artists are
ever bit the equal of male artists. And in recent years, the number offemale artists is also comparable to that of male artists. In preparation
for this exhibition, I visited the Indian cities of Mumbai, Bangalore, andDelhi to conduct a survey of female artists who had already achieved acertain amount in their careers on both a domestic and an internationallevel. I was deeply impressed by the concepts, the formal intensity, andthe diversity of expressive means and themes in their work. Though
there are ﬁve Indian artists in the exhibition, this is still not enough toaccurately convey the depth and breadth of the work made by womenin the country. Unfortunately, it is logistically impossible to present
any more Indian artists. But this is more or less the case with the othercountries too, and due to shipping costs and space constraints, we wereunable to include work by contemporary artists such as Agnes Arellanoof the Philippines and Suzann Victor of Singapore, both of whom arenotable ﬁgures in their respective homelands. Although we are only
able to introduce a handful of artists in the exhibition, all of the works
by the 50 participants reﬂect urgent issues facing Asian women and thediverse lifestyles they have adopted to deal with them. Further, we as
curators have made every eﬀort to create an exhibition that does notundermine this sense of diversity.
The ﬁve sections in the exhibition represent a wide range ofinterests and various aspects of the artistsʼ work, but here I would
like to discuss the signiﬁcance of the show by looking at the ﬁfth andﬁnal section, which contains many younger artists, and the work of
Yamashiro Chikako.
As Kokatsu Reiko writes in her essay, the Indian artist Shilpa Gupta(whose work appears in the ﬁfth chapter) was not especially keen on
participating in an exhibition that is tied to the theme of “women.”4

Similarly, it is diﬃcult, on the surface at least, to view the work of themark oﬀ territories. This in turn has led to a history in which people andperspective. Perhaps the inclusion of a younger generation of artists

an adversarial relationship in regard to territorial rights. Which explains

Bangladeshi artist Niloofar Chaman in terms of an inherently female
with such ambiguous characteristics in an exhibition of this type, whichcontains only female artists and is in part founded on the theme ofgender, threatens to obscure our original intent. But if exhibitions as
a whole are a kind of authoritarian system that revolves around theorganizers in order to faithfully reproduce speciﬁc intentions, it seems
appropriate for us to deliberately deal with artists that do not quite
ﬁt in̶as this exhibition is meant to focus on the decentralizationand diversiﬁcation that lie “in between.” Moreover, while remaining
aware of a variety of gaps, including generational diﬀerences, anotherobjective of this exhibition is to ﬁll in the gaps, and share and inherit
experiences and values. Asian womenʼs living conditions are undergoingdrastic changes. And in light of this situation, dealing with thechanging awareness of gender issues is another important function ofthis exhibition. In addition, younger artists are inevitably faced with theproblem of how to inherit past experiences and memories that they are
not personally involved with.
This calls to mind Yamashiro Chikakoʼs video workcountries that are divided and connected by the sea have succumbed to

why Wu set out to reverse such ideas, reconsider the world with the sea

as its center, and propose a symbiotic relationship between people, allof whom are linked by the sea (border).
Though this exhibition focuses on women living in between, life ona border not only signiﬁes dwelling between two places, it also suggests
the need to confront a type of dilemma. Yet, this is not the same kind ofdilemma faced by someone who occupies a superior position and whois free to wield power as they see ﬁt. As Wu suggested in her project, itis instead the dilemma of those who attempt to relativize a multitude ofvalues without simply judging them in terms of right and wrong, andwho attempt to live with contradiction. And it is this way of living,feeling, and thinking that provides the type of strength and ﬂexibility
necessary to survive in society in the future.
Curator, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum(translated by Christopher Stephens)[p. 113]. The work begins with a closeup ofYamashiroʼs face. From her mouth comes a stream of memories related
to the death of Japanese people on the island of Saipan. But the voiceis that of an elderly man and Yamashiro simply repeats the same story.
Then after a while, tears begin to roll down her cheeks, seemingly in sync
with the manʼs sorrowful memories. Not only is Yamashiro listening tothe story, but by vibrating her vocal cords she physically relives themanʼs experience and thus keenly conveys her fervent desire to capture
it inside of her. But there also seems to be a completely diﬀerent
emotion mixed in with Yamashiroʼs tears. This is related to the sense ofsadness and regret that younger people without any experience of thewar feel because they cannot understand the import of the manʼs words
as well as the dilemma of being caught between oneʼs self and others,
and the past and present. In some part of her conscious, Yamashiro
perceives this and cannot help but try to respond.5 But this dilemma isperhaps the fate of those who live in between̶and something that isbest manifested in Okinawa, the place where Yamashiro was born andraised, and the geopolitical border between Japan and the rest of Asia.
After Fukuoka, Tochigi, and Mie, this exhibition will travel to theOkinawa Prefectural Museum & Art Museum. Three of the participants
are from Okinawa, which is extremely signiﬁcantly in light of the issues
discussed above. How have the artists determined their position anddecided how to express themselves within the wider context of Asia? It
is also intriguing to consider how the people of Okinawa will respondto the works by these Asian women artists.
In closing, I would like to mention a project by Wu Mali whom wewere unable to include in this exhibition. A pioneering female artist in
her native Taiwan, Wu took part inin 2005,and organized a regional exchange project calledin theﬁshing village of Shikanoshima. The project, originally titled, focused on the power ofthe Black Current (), which ﬂows from the distant south of

Fukuoka and crosses the borders of several countries, and the extensive
marine biosphere that is linked by the sea. At the time, Wu remarked
that we tend to think too much in terms of land. And from this landlocked perspective, the sea seems to be little more than a borderline to

The “L” stood for the Tagalog word “” (or fight).
Though the video works by Idemitsu Mako that are being screened during the exhibition were
produced in the 1970s,
is the earliest of the standing works in the main display
area. The exhibition also includes several works produced outside Asia.
3The artists who took part both in theand the present exhibition include
Amanda Heng and Navjot Altaf (first event); and Aisha Khalid, Ashmina Ranjit, Pinaree
Sanpitak, Lin Tianmiao, Yin Xiuzhen, and Song Hyun Sook (second event).
4
See footnote 36 on p. 21.
5
In regard to this point, Watanabe Shinya also stresses the difficulty of inheriting experience: “Ihavenʼt digested your experiences; they have only gone down my throat.”
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Essay 3 Nakao Tomomichi ｜29