The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 10 | Issue 30 | Number 3 | Article ID 3802 | Jul 22, 2012

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The Suddenly Relevant Activist Antics of Artist CollectiveChim↑Pom: Challenging Japan’s Nuclear Power Agenda　　にわかに意義を帯びるアーティスト・グループ Chim↑Pom の風狂−−日本原発問題への挑戦

Linda Hoaglund, Chim ↑Pom

The Suddenly Relevant ActivistAnt i c s o f A r t i s t Co l l ec t i veChim↑Pom: Challenging Japan’sNuclear Power Agenda

Chim↑Pom with an introduction by LindaHoaglund

Chim↑Pom

Chim↑Pom, the young Japanese ar tprovocateurs’ collective, first attained notorietyin 2008, when they hired a small plane to flyover Hiroshima to draw the word Pika (anonomatopoetic for the atomic flash) in smokeagainst skies once dwarfed by the mushroomcloud. Their un-announced “art prank,” whichthey filmed for a video art project, drew sharprebukes for its insensitivity to the hibakushacommunity and the group of five men and onewoman had to publicly apologize. That wasthree years before the great trifecta of

earthquake, tsunami and meltdown jolted thenation’s consciousness into a re-evaluation oftheir singular nuclear history and vulnerability.Since March 11 t h , 2011, the group hasresponded by deploying their deceptiveamateurism (none has attended art school andall have day jobs) to detonate Japan’s post-3/11taboos. In the PBS Frontline program “AtomicArtists”

you can see a range of the ir art is t icprovocations. For example, watch them“supplementing” Okamoto Taro’s epic muraldepicting Japan’s nuclear past, “Myth ofTomorrow,” installed in the Shibuya station tocommemorate the victims of Hiroshima,Nagasaki and Lucky Dragon #5 fishing boughtirradiated in the Bikini H-bomb tests. They callit “Level 7,” which now supplements Okamotowith their rendering of Fukushima. Here youcan find Chim↑Pom in Real Times trespassingonto the periphery of the hobbled nuclearpower plant at Fukushima in hazmat suits, topaint and raise a nuclearized Japan flag. “ "Weparked our car at the main gate of the plant,and there is an overlook within the premises ofthe plant. That overlook was built to gain theresidents' understanding for the nuclear powerplant, and it had become a place where peoplesee the first sunrise of the year. … We walkedto the overlook and got out our white flag, andpainted in red the rising sun of the flag, whichcomes from the sunrise. And then we alteredthe flag ... in the image of the radiationsymbol."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/the-atomic-artists/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/the-atomic-artists/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/the-atomic-artists/chimpom-art/#3

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Hoisting the radiated Hinomaru flag withTEPCO Plant in the background, April,2011

We came up with our name because we wantedsomething upbeat, that sounds like dotcom,” –may turn out to be the perfect formula to pushthe boundaries of art and protest for a newlyalerted, infuriated and energized public whoserecent demonstrations in Tokyo have been thelargest in mainland Japan since the 1960s.

I first heard about Chim Pom from AidaMakoto, when I asked him to recommendyoung artists for my film ANPO: Art X Warhttp://www.newday.com/films/anpoartxwar.html, about Japanese artistic resistance to theongoing U.S. military presence there. Aida isthe prodigiously talented, slyly provocativeartist best known internationally for his neo-classical painting “Map of an Air Raid of NewYork,” (1996) and “The Video from a Mancalling himself bin Laden Staying in Japan,”featuring the turbaned artist extolling thevirtues of hiding out in Japan drinking sake.When I interviewed Aida - who teaches atprominent art schools – he told me, “TheChim↑Pom members weren’t in any of myclasses. Usually, when I assigned my studentsart projects with political themes, they werejust confused, but Chim↑Pom’s leader, UshiroRyuta, approached me about making that kindof art. I didn’t teach him anything. He comesfrom an unusual background, because hisfather was a ranking official in the former

Japanese Communist Party. Apparently he wasa prodigal son who squandered his youthpartying, but you can see him grappling withthose contradictions in his work today.”

Three years after their maligned debut, theiroutspoken politics –“Which side are you on? Doyou take risks?”– fused with their disarmingnaiveté – “We were originally inspired by theMTV show “Jackass.” But the world hadchanged, and so had Chim↑Pom.

Interview with Chim↑Pom member UshiroRyuta here.

Chim↑Pom Red Card a t TEPCO’sFukushima Nuclear Plant

Interview with Atomic Artists producer EmilyTaguchi here.

Producer/Director Linda Hoaglund was bornand raised in Japan. Her previous film, Wings ofDefeat, told the story of Kamikaze pilots whos u r v i v e d W W I I . S h e d i r e c t e d a n dproduced ANPO, a film about Japaneseresistance to U.S. bases seen through the eyesand works of celebrated Japanese artists. Sheworked as a bilingual news producer forJapanese TV. She has subtitled Japanese films,represents Japanese directors and artists, andserves as an international liaison for film

http://www.newday.com/films/anpoartxwar.htmlhttp://www.newday.com/films/anpoartxwar.htmlhttp://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/the-atomic-artists/art-cannot-be-powerless/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/the-atomic-artists/emily-taguchi/http://www.edgewoodpictures.com/wingsofdefeat/http://www.edgewoodpictures.com/wingsofdefeat/http://www.anpomovie.com/

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producers. An Asia-Pacific Journal Associate,she can be contacted here.

Recommended citation: Chim↑Pom with anintroduction by Linda Hoaglund, "The SuddenlyRelevant Activist Antics of Artist CollectiveChim↑Pom: Challenging Japan’s NuclearPower Agenda," The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol10, Issue 30, No. 3, July 23, 2012.

Articles on related subjects

•Noriko MANABE, The No Nukes 2012 Concertand the Role of Musicians in the Anti-NuclearMovement

•Linda Hoaglund, ANPO: Art X War – InHavoc’s Wake

•David McNeill, Ryuichi SAKAMOTO: FromBach to Rock to Pop . . . and the Fate of theCorporate Earth

•Piers Williamson, Largest Demonstrations inHalf a Century Protest the Restart of JapaneseNuclear Power Plants

•Tomomi YAMAGUCHI and Muto Ruiko, MutoRuiko and the Movement of FukushimaResidents to Pursue Criminal Charges againstTepco Executives and Government Officials

•Maeda Arata, Satoko Oka Norimatsu, AmidInvisible Terror: The Righteous Anger of AFukushima Farmer Poet

•Artists Hong-An Truong and Elin O'HaraSlavick, War, Memory, the Artist and ThePolitics of Language

•James E. Roberson, Songs of War and Peace:Music and Memory in Okinawa

•Laura Hein and Nobuko Tanaka, BrushingWith Authority: The Life and Art of TomiyamaTaeko

•Jamie Doucette and Robert Prey, BetweenMigrant and Minjung: The Changing Face ofMigrant Cultural Activism in Korea

• Gavan McCormack, Ampo’s Troubled 50th:Hatoyama’s Abortive Rebellion, Okinawa’sMounting Resistance and the US-JapanRelationship (3 part series)

• Gwisook Gwon, Protests Challenge NavalBase Construction on Jeju Island, South Korea:Hunger Strike Precipitates a National andInternational Movement

• Kamanaka Hitomi and Norma Field,Complicity and Victimhood: Director KamanakaHitomi's Nuclear Warnings

• Andrew Yeo, Anti-Base Movements in SouthKorea: Comparative Perspective on the Asia-Pacific

• Jon Mitchell, Beggars’ Belief: The Farmers’Resistance Movement on Iejima Island,Okinawa

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