第二次三カ年計画（2024-2026 Tatekawa Kiyoshiro film collection 57-59』 2026年4月19日 soco1010（東京） photo:井上雄輔
The Invisible Dog (New York City) and BUoY Arts Center (Tokyo) are thrilled to present a multi-projectiont and live music performance by Kiyoshiro Tatekawa.
It has been written somewhere that zoos exist as nostalgic reminders of a time when humans, too, were animals. Although the first modern zoo, the Schönbrunn Zoo, opened in 1752, the very idea of the zoo likely emerged much earlier, as civilization developed and humans began to separate themselves from the natural world.
A zoo is a place where every aspect of life, shelter, food, reproduction, even movement, is controlled by its administrators. In this sense, the zoo becomes a powerful metaphor for the modern city. Like animals in captivity, urban dwellers depend almost entirely on systems managed by others. Our access to food, water, energy, and safety is sustained by infrastructures that remain largely invisible until they fail.
The Great East Japan Earthquake and the COVID-19 pandemic revealed just how fragile these systems can be. When distribution networks are disrupted, essential supplies disappear, livelihoods are threatened, and freedom of movement is restricted. In such moments, people are forced to entrust their survival to institutions and administrators. Cities may prepare for emergencies, but they remain vulnerable to the unpredictable forces of nature.
Water and food are not inherently found in cities, they are brought there. Yet many people living in contemporary urban environments have lost the knowledge and means to provide for themselves outside these systems. The conveniences of city life conceal a persistent vulnerability, one that grows as cities become larger and more complex.
Animals, by contrast, can survive beyond the boundaries of the zoo. They build shelters, find food, and adapt to their environments. Humans once possessed these same abilities, yet have gradually distanced themselves from the natural world.
So what do we really see when we look at animals in a zoo? Are we observing another species or are we confronting reflections of ourselves? Perhaps the zoo does not simply preserve the past of humanity, but reveals its present, and even hints at its future.
Kiyoshiro Tatekawa ives and works in Tokyo. He is a photographer and filmmaker creating material-based video works that eliminate narrative elements by applying experimental editing to footage primarily shot at zoos and in urban settings. A defining feature of his work is that the screenings themselves are presented as experimental installations, such as using multiple projectors to project onto a gauze screen.
Location
BUoY Arts Center / Basement
49-11, Senju-Nakacho, Adachi-ku,
Tokyo
Admission:
Free
Date
Friday September 4, 2026
at 7.30PM
As part of the opening reception of NAFAS Festival