No5 [Exhibition] Kioku: fracture and memories

Until the 8th of December, Christian Ferreira will present the first collaborative installation by British artists Tom Milnes & Sabine Okami in the Accumulator Tower at Wapping Hydraulic Power Station. Titled “Kioku” (memory) this ambitious installation sees Milnes & Okami working with personal elements relating to emotional memories felt through disconnection. The starting point is based on stories related to the 2011 Japanese earthquake, as experienced by Okami’s grandparents. The artists explore issues of memory, translation and migration by weaving personal narratives into everyday Japanese convenience-food products and placing them in an unnerving environment. Milnes & Okami mirror the now disused warehouses of the area, which used to be filled with exotic produce from the Far East, by filling the space with shelves stacked with the reinterpreted copies of Japanese convenience food products. Each of the reinterpreted products is made from a wood-block print, loaded with family histories, thus creating a hybridized product which is then organized and stored away. By stepping into claustrophobic space filled with these re-interpreted products that seem at once familiar, yet exotic and foreign, the viewer will experience an unexpected shudder as the shelves transform the space into one of angst, creating a feeling of imminent danger.