OKA Miyuki

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OKA Miyuki

Participating Project	Local Emerging Creator Residency Program
Activity Based	Hokkaido
City / Place stayed	Tokyo
Period	2026.1- 2026.3

Purpose of the residency

In this program, I plan to use a series of bombings that occurred in Japan in the 1970s as an entry point for exploring new relations between land, individuals, time, and place through research and artistic experimentation. These incidents are often framed within political and historical narratives, but I aim to reconfigure them by intersecting them with other systems of knowledge—such as soil science, geography, and technological perspectives. This cross-reading will serve as a way to reconsider the relationship between people and land from a contemporary viewpoint. During my stay, I will focus on collecting and organizing materials related to the incidents and observing and documenting urban spaces mainly in Tokyo.

Plan during the residency

• Visit facilities that hold materials related to the incident, and search for records such as videos, photographs, audio, documents, and physical objects.
• Visit the actual site involved in the incident, observe its current condition, and record it through video, photography, audio, or sketches.
• Research the land connected to the incident from geographical or technological perspectives, and collect diagrams and numerical data.
• Determine an organizing framework based on the materials, media and experiences obtained through the activities above, and reassemble them into a work (such as an installation, video piece, or instruction-based work).

Activities during the residency

Working from an interest in land, information, and the forces that emerge from them, I conducted research on bombing incidents that took place in Tokyo and Hokkaido in the 1970s. Initially, I visited the actual sites of the explosions and documented them through photography. However, after encountering materials related to the incidents—displayed as archival objects in a history museum—my focus shifted toward recording contemporary scenes that include the movement of such materials as objects and data, as well as the institutions involved in their storage and preservation. I also examined the formats of these materials by editing them, based on literature research and dialogue with a curator in residence at the time. From the middle of the residency, I exchanged information with people familiar with the events, reconfiguring the incidents through multiple perspectives, including communication, media, and activism, and developing this process as an artistic practice.

Outcome of the residency

This was my first attempt to conduct research and artistic production by taking an actual historical incident as a point of entry. Through this process, I was able to reconsider and articulate my approach to media, as well as my stance toward engaging with others through my work. Being based in Tokyo allowed for a mode of research grounded in direct experience—seeing objects, visiting sites, and meeting people. At the same time, during the first half of the residency, I struggled to establish a clear direction for the work and was not able to fully make use of the research opportunities afforded by the residency’s specific environment and networks, which remains a point of reflection. Moving forward, building on the perspectives gained through this residency, I aim to develop my practice as a research-driven process, moving between multiple perspectives such as land and information, and media and activism.

Creator Information