Community of Images: Research at Takahiko Iimura's Studio, March 2023
Mia Parnall
By co-curators Ann Adachi and Go Hirasawa
In March 2023, as part of the Community of Images exhibition project, we partnered with Videoart Center Tokyo to research materials at Takahiko Iimura’s studio in Tokyo. We were in search of materials related to Shelter 9999, a collaborative work between Takahiko Iimura and composer Alvin Lucier. The third co-curator Julian Ross had been researching this work, and had previously discussed it with Iimura, who passed away in 2022.
At the studio, we located the original slides for Shelter 9999. We also found the original 16mm film for this work. The case contained instructions for performing this piece, and it’s an object we had been searching for. Further research into the Alvin Lucier papers at the New York Public Library led us to another film element.
The result is a three-screen presentation in the exhibition featuring the slides, the main 16mm film, and the shorter film pieces. Julian will write about his research in a separate post.
In addition to the elements for Shelter 9999, we were able to find photographs that Takahiko Iimura took in the 1960s and 1970s. They have been digitized for research and exhibition.
We were also delighted to see Akiko Iimura again. It had been a few years since Ann last spent time with Akiko in New York. We delivered a letter from the Philadelphia-based video artist Peter D’Agostino, and another letter from Kyoko Michishita, whom Ann had interviewed the day before.