Korea Town was one of my favorite places to go in New York because of the different culture that was going on and the good restaurants. Korea town is more importantly a business district than anything else. Few people actually live in this area. Koreatown or K-town as some refer to it as, was never planned out initially. The high number of Korean immigrants moving to and from places such as the Empire State Building, the Flower District, and the Garment District made it an ideal place for Koreans.
They set up many restaurants and shops along the “Korea-way” with some restaurants being open 24/7. The restaurant that we went to served a variety of things to go along with our meal including fish with the head still attached. This was a completely new experience for me because I had never eaten a whole fish like that before. I finally learned how to somewhat use chopsticks and had a lot of fun doing so.
The shops in Korea town were amazing. Some were full of punk-rock culture. One of the shops I went into sold vintage records and vintage “rock-n-roll” style clothes. Others sold more oriental clothing and earthy bohemian type things. Korea town is definitely a go-to place when one goes to New York.
Chim Pom is a collection of six artists: Ellie, Ryuta Ushiro, Yasutaka Hayashi, Masataka Okada, Toshinori Mizuno, and Motomu Inaoka. The group came together in 2005 in Tokyo. The group’s ages range from late twenties to early thirties. They were inspired by popular Japanese visual artist, Makoto Aida. They have no formal training, but wanted to create something. They had a video camera and decided this was where to start and filmed things they thought were interesting.
Their first exhibition included a video of them catching “super rats” of Tokyo. These rats were called “super” because they are immune to human made poisons. After they caught a large number of the rats, Chim Pom proceeded to taxidermy them to look like Pikachu. This is a wildly famous Pokemon character. They then placed the bright yellow rats around the city.
The next project involved photographing the crows of Tokyo in and around popular buildings. The concept behind these early works is to showcase social problems in a fun way. Also, Chim Pom wanted to expose parts of everyday life that we chose not to look at. The goals of these and other early works was to reflect the peaceful society of the times. This changed with the events of Fukushima.
March 11, 2011 changed Japan for ever. A massive 9.0 earthquake shook Japan. The The National Police Agency of Japan reported that as of Sept 11, 2011 a total of 15,850 deaths, 6,011 injured, and 3,287 people missing. Ryuta Ushiro, the leader of Chim Pom, remembers exactly where he was that day. He was in his home and felt the world shake. He turned on the television and was bombarded with devastating images. He sat there looking at the tv not knowing if friends and family were ok. In this moment he felt compelled to do something. Volunteer, hand out supplies, anything. He wrote to the members of Chim Pom and decided that they should create a work to express the feelings of Japan in this moment.
Ryuta watched the news reports of the area effected by the nuclear power plant. He became increasingly curious as to what exactly was going on there. The press only ever had reports from the government to share when there were so many people working in the power plant. He decided to take a risk and visit Fukushima. Here they found many horrors of the earthquake. They photographed these scenes and framed them with frames found in Fukushima. Soma is about 50k from the nuclear power plant. This is an area where volunteers did not venture. Chim Pom found a group of young survivors who had created their own relief efforts. With these survivors, Chim Pom created the 100 Cheers that is on display at PS1. They yelled whatever they wanted from the bottom of their hearts. These young adults have lost their homes and loved ones. They are in a radiation filled city and yet they have banded together to begin the process of reconstructing their city.
The exhibit consists of two screens playing the cheers simultaneously. Throughout the first floor of PS1 you can hear the 100 Cheers of the children of Soma.
