The shrine to summon the souls 2014

'The shrine to summon the souls' opens a cycle of short films investigating and constructing an ongoing reinterpretation of history using symbolic locations, frameworks of historiography, historical, political, and sociological ideologies, and various cultural relics.
Blossoming cherry trees in the gardens surrounding Yasukuni Shrine offer a spectacle of fugitive beauty and an intense experience of time as if passing moments were visible with every tiny white petal falling on stones paving the paths between the trees. It is a special moment for a meeting of many narratives of the past and the present seemingly out of time, where the living walk alike the absent spirits. The temple is consecrated to the heroes of the country, among them controversial ones from the period of the Second World War. The memory is being aestheticized, but under the surface of a charming landscape, the violence, contempt, rage and hate due to a failure of the struggle for freedom is echoed by a human voice.

Note: The text above was written by the Artist. No modification was made by COCA.

Michal Martychowiec

Germany

http://michalmartychowiec.com/

Michal Martychowiec (born in 1987) creates conceptual series of photographs, films, drawings, neons, objects, mixed media installations and environments. He is a visiting lecturer at China Academy of Art in Hangzhou and visiting scholar at Russian Institute of Art History in Saint Petersburg. He lives and works in Berlin.
Martychowiec’s oeuvre consists of a mixed-media practice designed in larger series. It is thus always developed hermeneutically around an expanded topic.
Martychowiec has participated in over 100 exhibitions in Europe, Asia, North and South America, among others at: Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw, Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Weserburg Museum for Modern Art in Bremen, Memorial Getúlio Vargas in Rio de Janeiro, Centre for Polish Sculpture in Oronsko, Art Museum of Nua in Nanjing, Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery in Haverford, Centro Párraga in Murcia, Signum Foundation Palazzo Dona in Venice, Videoinsight Center in Turin, etc.