Bontarō Dokuyama

Bontarō Dokuyama (毒山凡太朗, Dokuyama Bontarō, b. 1984) is a Japanese contemporary artist from Fukushima who employs a wide range of methodologies and approaches in his body of work, including political activism, interviews, installation, and video.

Dokuyama was deeply impacted by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and the nuclear disaster that followed. Having worked as an architectural designer, he decided to start over as an artist after witnessing the destruction of his hometown in Fukushima prefecture. His works are primarily political. He regularly engages with places, people, and issues that have been obscured in contemporary Japanese society, revealing the memories and emotions of those who have been left out or forgotten in mainstream historical discourse.

Dokuyama has been active as an artist since 2014, and has engaged with various controversial political topics in his body of work, including nuclear displacement, 'comfort' women, Japan's colonization of Taiwan, and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. His works are in the collections of the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art and Mori Art Museum in Japan, and Kadist in Paris and San Francisco. In 2017, he was selected as a candidate for the 20th Taro Okamoto Award; and in 2018, he participated in the Art Action UK artist residency in London.

Early life and engagement with art Born as an identical twin in Tamura City, Fukushima Prefecture, Dokuyama lived there until he was 18 years old. He initially studied microbiology in university, but shifted to pursue design at a vocational school before going on to work as an architectural designer in Tokyo for seven years.

Even after 1,000 Years (2015) and Over There (2015) In 2015, Dokuyama returned to Fukushima Prefecture for the first time since the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, where he took part in a joint exhibition with the artist duo Kyun-Chome at Nao Nakamura's gallery space in Iwaki City. In addition to exhibiting some earlier artworks, Dokuyama produced the short video piece Even after 1,000 Years and the three-channel video installation Over There for the exhibition. In their exhibition statement, the artists pointed out the irony of the name of the Jōban-sen railway that connects Tōhoku to Tokyo and runs through their respective home prefectures of Fukushima and Ibaraki. Jōban (常磐) denotes eternal immortality, imbuing the railway with a sense of security and longevity that was shattered after the triple disaster. He followed the poem "Childlike story" (あどけない話, Adokenai hanashi), in which Chieko longs for the sky above Mount Adatara in Fukushima as the "real sky" that she can nostalgically recall from her childhood. In the video, Dokuyama stands in the pouring rain atop Mount Adatara and calls out for Chieko, pointing to the sky and shouting over and over that it is the only "real sky" and that all other skies are fake. He facilitated workshops in which displaced citizens from Fukushima's various exclusion zones decorated masks using paint and local newspaper clippings to represent the hometowns they hoped to return to one day. Dokuyama, who was also still unable to return to his own hometown at the time, then recorded the participants wearing their masks in front of their temporary homes and pointing silently in the direction of their abandoned homes. For the final installation, Dokuyama placed the masks into glass cases and mounted them amongst a three-channel video loop of the residents pointing.

The War is Over! (2017) For The War is Over!, Dokuyama recorded himself shouting "War is over!" at several significant locations in Okinawa in a direct reference to the Battle of Okinawa, one of the deadliest battles of the Asia Pacific War. During his first visit to Okinawa, the artist felt a distinctive consciousness about how belonging to the Japanese nation varies in different localities, and began to think more about the complicated intersection of emotion, memory, and history. For this piece, Dokuyama used satirical humor to critically approach the continued presence of the American military bases in Okinawa despite the war being over long ago. He was selected by curator Yabumae Tomoko as the first artist in a 5-volume exhibition series that dealt with issues related to Tokyo's urban transformation in anticipation of the 2020 Summer Olympic Games. The video opens with footage of the Imperial Japanese rising sun flag, confronting viewers with the country's repressed colonial legacy and history of military aggression before presenting testimonies of the Taiwanese interviewees' experiences growing up as Japanese Imperial subjects. They showcase the entrenched impacts of Japan's ideological assimilation policies, with the interviewees singing popular Japanese war songs and reciting the Imperial Rescript on Education from memory.

Selected exhibitions

2020 - "SAKURA," LEESAYA, Meguro, Tokyo, Japan 2019 - "Aichi Triennale: "Taming Y/Our Passion," Aichi Triennale, Nagoya, Japan 2019 - "Plans for Tokyo 2019, Vol.1: RENT TOKYO," gallery αM, Tokyo, Japan 2019 - "Roppongi Crossing 2019: Connexions," Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan 2018 - "Public archive," AOYAMAMEGURO, Tokyo, Japan / Assembling, K11 Art Mall, Shenyang, China 2017 - "Double Façade: Multiple ways to encounter the Other," Koganecho Bazaar 2017, Kanagawa, Japan 2017 - ""If Only Radiation Had Color: The Era of Fukushima," X AND BEYOND, Copenhagen, Denmark 2016 - "The 4th branch, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry" Anti-nuclear Occupy Tent Museum, Kasumigaseki, Tokyo, Japan 2016 - "Shudder and Orgasm," Komagome SOKO, Tokyo, Japan 2015 - "I can also hear you today" (今日もきこえる), Nao Nakamura, Iwaki City, Fukushima, Japan