With Friction, As Friction

2018

HD Video, Color, Sound

14min. 45sec.

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With Friction, As Friction

Installation view at S.Y.P art space /With Friction, As Friction

With Friction, As Friction

Installation view at S.Y.P art space /With Friction, As Friction

With Friction, As Friction

Video still/With Friction, As Friction

With Friction, As Friction

Video still/With Friction, As Friction

With Friction, As Friction

Video still/With Friction, As Friction

With Friction, As Friction

Video still/With Friction, As Friction

With Friction, As Friction

Video still/With Friction, As Friction





With Friction, As Friction was filmed at Matsunoyama which locates in the middle of a mountain and is one of the heaviest snowfall areas in Japan.

It highlights Yukihori, which means snow shoveling on rooftops in the dialect of this region, and is a winter routine labour of the inhabitants. Switching places and workers, Yukihori is repeated endlessly in this work. As the framing zooming out gradually, the workers’ figures get anonymous, and the sound of the shoveling gets rhythmic.

The heavy snowfall suffers the inhabitants but provides them a great benefit for rice farming, which is the major produce of this region, by enriching the ground water. The struggling between the nature and the inhabitants emerges as Yukihori and the continuous labour results in keeping the landscape of Matsunoyama as if the inhabitants’ lives were also embedded in a holistic ecosystem of the mountain.


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