Untitled（幽閉されている / Imprisoned）

In October 2020, I lost a friend in a car accident. On the first anniversary of his death, October 3, 2021, I staged Being My Neighbor — a performance based on a conversation between four people, including myself and my friend, that had been recorded by chance three months before the accident.

I had originally intended to perform as that friend in this exhibition. But at the end of July 2022, we received news that Toru Kubota — who also appears in the same recording — had been detained in Myanmar, where he was working as a journalist. Since then, we have been calling continuously for his release: gathering petitions, holding press conferences, pursuing every avenue available to us. As of two weeks before this performance, we had still not been able to see him.

When we cannot confirm a person’s will — when someone is neither present nor reachable — what must we consider? What are we obligated to ask ourselves? These questions, which spill beyond the urgent demand for Kubota’s release, surface through dialogue with two friends who are now imprisoned within a recording: one by death, the other by detention.

In this performance, I disclose who I am acting as, and explore what that act of disclosure itself expresses.