Dr Kristen Sharp

Wednesday 3 September
12.45 – 1.30pm
Cell Block Theatre

Contemporary Japanese artist Yuko Mohri (b. 1980) photographed the idiosyncratic, temporary remediation works made by Tokyo station managers in a series titled ‘Moré Moré (Leaky) –fieldwork’ (2009-2021). These creations, situated on the Yamanote metro line, use everyday objects to repair subway groundwater leakage. They demonstrate a micro level of care to draw attention to the ecologies of water, including histories of water management and geotopographies, in urban space. As creative actions, the leakage repairs amplify the intersecting and reciprocal ecology of the human and nonhuman.

Mohri has also made a series of sound and kinetic installations informed by the repair works. While leaking subways are prosaic and ubiquitous around the world, Mohri’s work points to aesthetic and ecological epistemologies and histories of public space, art, geotopographies and environment specific to Tokyo, Japan.

Dr Kristen Sharp is Director and CEO of NAS and Honorary Professor at RMIT University. Her research includes contemporary Asian art, urban space, public art, and sound art. She co-curated “Mutable Ecologies: Tracing Changing Environments and Phantasms for Future Ecologies”, and co-authored “Screen Ecologies: Art, Media and the Environment in the Asia-Pacific Region”. Her chapter on Yuki Mohri will soon be published in Contemporary art and ecological transformation in East and Southeast Asia (Rethinking Art’s Histories, ed. Meiqin Wang, MUP).