Stairs

🐐MELANKAORI🏺

CV
1991 Born in Kanagawa.
2017 graduated from Tokyo University of the Arts with an MA in inter media art
2015 graduated from Tokyo University of the Arts in inter media art
2009 graduated from Yokohama Senior High School of International Studies
f/k/a Kanagawa Prefectural Senior High School of Foreign Studies

EXHIBITIONS

020 “Video Edition Box”,HIGURE 17-15 cas,Tokyo
2019 “Where Angels Fear to Tread”,Jonanjima Seaside Park,Tokyo
“Video edition box”,Art Center Ongoing,Tokyo
2018 “Fujinoyama Biennale 2018“,Old Igarashi Dental Clinic ,Shizuoka
“Sagamihara SUPER OPEN STUDIO 2018”,Aihara Apartment,Kanagawa
“Koganecho Bazaar 2018 ”, Motoi Building,Kanagawa
“NAMERAKA~”,TATARABA,Tokyo
“Early Morning Musings”,KOMAGOME SOKO,Tokyo
2017 “Kinokuni TorainART 2017”Nachi station,Wakayama
2016 ”Open Call for Art Project Ideas 2017”,Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art ,Hiroshima
2015 ”Traffic Site”,Nagoya University Of Arts Art & Design Center,Aichi
2013 “Delta”BankART Studio NYK,Kanagawa
2012 “IMA 13 weeks”,Awoba Soh,Tokyo
2011 “Kioku wo Tsumugu Kotoba wo Tsumugu”,Sendai Mediatheque,Miyagi

WORK SHOP

2018 “Divination Work Shop by MELANKAORI:Stray cat in Ueno Zoo”,UENOYES,Tokyo
”Divination Work Shop by MELANKAORI: May our divinations cause the stars to shudder”,blanClass,Kanagawa

AWARD

2016 ” Yukio Fujimoto Prize Open Call for Art Project Ideas 2017”,Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art

 

MEDIA

020 “ART COLUMN EXHIBITION 2013－2019 by Mariko Yamauchi”
2018 “Special Column MELANKAORI SPECIAL! by Mariko Yamauchi TV Bros Vol Feb.10 2018 “

 

The other day divination started in the middle of MEXICAN BBQ . Our divination is here on the street, not in the closed room

STATEMENT

【ABOUT】
I first introduced myself as “Melan Kaori” in 2011. The name first came to me at the age of 13 when I studied abroad in rural Kansas. There, I became acquainted with some Mexican American Chicanos and Chicanas through friends and Myspace and Melan Kaori is a variant of the name they used to call me. The name I use, Melan, means black or dark and is also part of the name of a legendary soothsayer and healer in Greek mythology, Melampus. Strangely enough, this circles back to me as I aspire to be a therapist – a profession anyone can aim for, yet unique to the characteristics of each individual. My own work is essentially premised on a kind of tool or ritual for healing insanity, but sometimes the method itself is insane. You could say that salvation resides in insanity itself, or you could say that there is an element of insanity in the healing. In other words, because I believe that insanity and healing are two sides of a mood, what appears as a work of art can be both healing and disorienting, remaining as a prophetic indicator. As a result, it deviates from existing psychotherapy and differs from the efficacy of prayer, relics, and supernatural blessings. Thinking about a world that keeps lending its hand to those that haven’t yet collapsed and a generation that is tired of being blessed with salvation. I continue to create for the non-distant future where those who have no place in hospitals, prisons or grave will come carrying their anxiety with nowhere else to go.

【STYLE】
When I need a stone with a reticular appearance, my next move would not be to pick up a tool and carve the reticulation pattern into the stone with my own hands, but instead, I would go out and find a stone with such patterns. As I begin to take on these tremendous tasks, I begin to think about what it means to be immortal.

【ATTITUDE】
There are people who deal with ungrounded fears unfoundedly. I feel that I shouldn’t be superstitious, but I am sympathetic to the idea. I’d like to think of these covert compulsive thoughts and actions as work that belongs to life, rather than dismissing them under the guise of illness or insanity. I do not want to dismiss “the state of having no ground” as unreasonable, but instead treat “the state of having no ground” as a valuable piece of information that needs to be cared for with caution. Sorcerers makes discoveries. Selecting their own wands and using it to turn beings into beasts and flying through the sky with their brooms. Even if you can’t actually do something like that, what’s important is to imagine the possibility. I will continue to spend my life discovering the secrets and wonders that lie between unfounded things and beings. As a therapist, I feel as though these discoveries can help lift the problems I may face in the future and even go onto help a few others along the way. I will continue to devote all my energy to this work, keeping in mind that curing insanity is a form of insanity in itself.

 

【MOTTO】
I do fortune-telling. However, I’ve never actually studied and taken the proper steps to become a fortune-teller. The first time I read someone was when I was first mistaken for a fortune-teller. The first time I did fortune-telling in public was on a train that went to and from the Kii Peninsula. The train departed Shirahama Station at 9:30 a.m. and turned back around at Shingu, and I continued to tell the fortunes of those who got on and off the train until 7 p.m. I only started calling myself a fortune-teller once I realized what I was doing, but according to a memorandum from that time, this will only last until 2023.
Horoscopes and palmistry tend to give contradicting information. I feel that where such contradictory information connects and diverges is where the fortune-tellers’ lead is tested. It is my job to create avenues of communication for the various discrepancies that arise when each piece of information is combined. If fortune-telling requires the movement of distant stars and the movement of one’s own mind to be in close proximity, then the fortune-teller must stay in a place where such extremes come so close to each other that they are on the verge of collapsing. And when the movement of the stars and the movement of the mind remain parallel, we will find a way for the two to meet, following a different scheme of motion than probability.

【LARGE AVIARY】
I was born the day after the outbreak of the Gulf War, a Friday morning when the Sun and Saturn were crossing Capricorn 28°. In astrology, the symbol of Capricorn 28° is said to be a large aviary – the birds being a metaphor for spirituality – where spiritual information is brought to you in a never-ending manner.
I’ve only recently been thinking of the birds, but last year a friend, who’s a Gemini, and I often walked around the Gulf Coast area. There, we came across people observing the wild birds of Tokyo Harbor. In that conversation, the birds’ movements appeared similar to the takeoff and landing of an airplane, the direction of wind, the skyline, and even mirroring the movement of one’s heart. Rather than describing what I thought about the birds, it was more like a report on what was revealed about their true nature. In other words, one might say that talking about birds is a test of how far we can fly from the existence of birds.

【WEBSITE】
In order for two extremes to meet each other – like the movement of the stars and the movement of the mind – there is a path that communicates the various contradictions of information, but that path cannot be described as a line connecting two dots. We often wander or are called to such a path, but we are never given an explanation of our destination. This is because the role of the path is to always take us there. But to those who stay in the same place to which they are called, it becomes what is belatedly called “divination.”
Proving that we don’t need roots, keys, auxiliary lines, lifelines, and so on along the way is a very difficult, but there is also truth in that there is a comfort and a corresponding reality that can only be felt when the things we rely on have been cut off. When walking along a mountain path or a path down to the ocean, there is often a rope alongside the path that leads the way. Holding onto this rope gives you a different sense of security than when holding onto an actual handrail. I feel that salvation is not about the hand that leads you somewhere, but a place where you feel saved when you arrive.
Lately, we’ve been in a season of uncertainty as the things that have been anchoring me to my own mind have gone off on their journeys. My wish is that during these uncertain times – where the world seems to be in a plateau of climbing stairs – this website acts as a safe haven for difficult conversations, conversations that shake even the highest of stars.

 

【ETTIQUETTE】
Anything that is self-sustaining always suffers from excess and lack. A line in front of us may look like something is continuously added or may look like it is lacking in something. A complaint about the fullness of existence. An example is tallies becoming more and more difficult to count. example, one of the symptoms is difficulty in counting positive letters. Start by asking each other about the rhythm of such difficulties. They will discover a care for those that fly across distances and time zones in all directions. A place where prayers don’t work and inquiries and tidings are being tossed around unreasonably. Reassurance to yourself is more important than concessions to others as a matter of traffic etiquette.