Meeting Kyongfa Che

This Saturday we went to meet Kyongfa Che who is a freelance curator based in Tokyo. Che has worked with various cultural institutions, for example: Singapore Art Musum, Contemporary Art Center of South Australia, Japan Foundation and Gwangju Biennale. Our conversation concerned both the role of feminism in Japan today but also what the contemporary art climate looks like in Tokyo and how the art scene is structured. Where does the conversations take place and what kind of art enters the institutions and galleries?

Here is one extract from Che's reflections regarding her own practice since she moved to Tokyo five years ago: "I've started working with a small group of people who are really hungry for discursive projects beacuse there was no base for that. I don't know if it's Japan or Tokyo but the art scene here has no base for critical thinking or critical discourse. When I first moved here I thought, is there anything I could do here? All the things that are going on here are spectacular and nicely packaged. I don't know, It's all about sensitivity. So I have been struggling a bit. But there are also people who are hungry for more discursive practices and philosophical thinking behind artistic practice so we have been organizing all sorts of things. These are the main things that I have been doing."

Che is one among many people we have met since we started working with this project that have expressed a surprised reaction to our aim of discussing the situation for feminism in Japan. Here is an extract from Che's thoughts regarding feminism: "The feminism here is not alive. People don't take it serious. The feminist movement in the 1960s and 1970s was not as profound as in New York for example. Feminist have been viewed as uptight, hard-core and angry with men. The best strategy to practice the discourse is maybe not to talk about it and don't call it feminism?"

For us these short extracts seems to be connected in some way. If there is very small room for critical discourse in the art institutions, where should a critical conversation about feminist strategies take place? Who should present feminist art works and who should response to them?