Kei Ito’s solo exhibition Teach Me How to Like This Planet at the College of Maryland’s Stamp Gallery is a somber exploration of generational trauma as a third generation hibakusha (atomic bomb target), and the repercussions of war. Ito’s practice is based in camera-significantly less images, uncovered objects, and textual content-dependent artworks.
Two discovered item-will work develop haunting mechanical appears. “Talking Heads,” is an installation of two analogue radios on chest-superior pedestals with an eerie static noise and sporadic voices that audio like antique radio recordings, wherever “Who will be the up coming sacrifice of peace?” and “Who will be the following sacrifice of war?” is recurring slowly and gradually above and above.
The static, mechanical and human sounds construct an impression of a barren landscape, and the repetition of every single phrase feels both of those unsure and totally hopeless considering that it suggests an unending likelihood of conflict. In addition, intermittently bomb raid alarms can be listened to echoing through the gallery.
Yet another mechanical staccato appears in the course of the exhibition house as a result of “Teach Me How to Like This Entire world,” two carousel projectors with rhythmic clicks. The devices job term combos on to the wall, which produce never-ending mini concrete poems. Although on the left facet possessive pronouns fade in, on the right nouns slowly and gradually fade out generating an undulating outcome as the viewer is lulled from 1 phrase to the next. Some mixtures are:
OUR Desire
YOUR DREAM
YOUR HISTORY
HER HISTORY
[…]
MY INVASION
THEIR INVASION
THEIR MONUMENT
OUR MONUMENTS
The words and phrases are all in cash letters, in a sans-serif font channeling the focus on the perceived which means of the words and phrases. The simplicity and vagueness also leaves the likelihood of narrative open up. The projections come to feel like concise declarations, and the possessive pronouns shed light on both the collective and person activities and sacrifices of war.