In this class, Shimabuku explores the need for faith and a sense of mystery when dealing with the contemporary globalised and mediatised world of instant communication and information overload.
By surveying and analysing some of his own works, Shimabuku develops the theory that accepting without understanding is a useful technique and approach to the modern world - and it is through our relationship to understanding art that we can apply this technique to life in general.
To him 'art is the realm in which we can practise accepting something we do not understand.'
Approximate duration - two hours
Shimabuku (b. 1969, Kobe, Japan)
Shimabuku's performances, videos, photographs and installations are often inspired by chance encounters or discoveries. Travel is a major theme in his work. Food is another. Sometimes the two coincide.
In 'Cucumber Journey' (2000) he documented an excursion he made from London to Birmingham, travelling by narrow boat on the Grand Union Canal. During the two-week journey, he pickled the cucumbers he had brought from London - 'a slow trip and a slow food', as he remarked.
Other works have involved taking a live octopus on a tour of Tokyo, and arranging an underwater tryst between a potato and a fish for 'Fish & Chips'. Shimabuku see parallels between making art and cooking. He is always amazed by food. 'There are so many surrealistic encounters between ingredient and ingredient.'