Romaji (ローマ字) is a term that defines the romanisation of Japanese script to aid translation of that language into roman characters. The term loosely describes the phonetic translation of Japanese language to English (or romanised) languages emanating from the Western world. This title was chosen for the project because the production of these video art works are born from a similar pursuit. This effort is to transcribe ideas of political theory in contemporary Asia to those people viewing the works in Kyoto, Japan.
The Econasia series is a project that has spanned four years and encompasses nine single and multi–channel video art works, with accompanied photographs.
Econasia: Romaji incorporates 4 of these video works that investigate both the man–made and natural environments in North Korea, Japan, Indonesia and Malaysia. Local social and political accounts that relate the economic and political influences driving the so–called Asian Century are interwoven with modernist literature, sound, and contrived narratives that depict political science in the moving image.
Yanxin Li
Econasia: Maritime
Maritime contains video and photographic works that form parts four & five of the Econasia series. The videos Irredentist and Affirm were filmed on the Yangtze River in China and the Inland Sea in Japan, respectively. Incorporating political science text and passages from Albert Camus‘ The Plague these works hope to offer an evocative consideration of contemporary political tensions in East Asia. The videos feature sound by Sarah Phelan & Byron Dean, with vox by Yanxin Li & Jihyun Lee.
This show is perhaps the most poignant representation of the Econasia series to date and will run at Kings Gallery from May 29 until June 22 on Level 1 / 171 King Street.
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