The incomplete Momotaro Sacred Sailor (IV)

 Momotaro: Sacred Sailors (桃太郎 海の神兵, Momotarō: Umi no Shinpei), released in 1945, was a World War II propaganda film commissioned by the Japanese Naval Ministry. (Source: Wikipedia)  Borrowing from the film’s depiction of lush and picturesque landscapes of Japan, this artwork mimics a Japanese garden complete with water feature. The garden intersects visions of geography; landscape and home – linking political ideology to the idea of space.
 
Central to this site-responsive work that was shown in Hiroshima, Japan, is the involvement of a local production team who were tasked to design and constructed ‘a Japanese garden’. As the film was made-in-Japan for the Japanese audience, this process extends on the imaginations of a homeland.
 
Momotaro: Sacred Sailors omits details of war-time agony – does not depict any spilling of blood. Subverting the production method of such animation, the work attempts to fill in the missing details through the use of black acrylic paint – media used in creating the film. The flow of the black paint in the artwork meanders and flows down the landscape, leaving marks across the light-grey and white rocks in the ‘garden’ – extending on the lack of colour in such black and white film.

A children’s song extracted from the film, where the protagonists taught local peasants the Japanese language, is also featured and on-loop in this installation.
 
Momotaro Sacred Sailors is available on Youtube.

Media: Japanese rocks, pebbles, black acrylic paint, water pump, plants, audio player and speakers
Dimensions: 3.5 (W) x 3.5 (D) x 1.2 (H) m

Installation-view, close-up

Captured scenes of a Japanese country-side from the film: 'Momotaro: Scred Sailor'.

Email: antchin69@hotmail.com    |    IG: anthonychin.art