Anti-cool

Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles Morel: We met in Kitchener, Canada, in 2005, and I still remember our adventures together at Dandy’s. The potato wedges! So much fun, and also an organic insight into the day-to-day of a country about which we only used to hear from time to time, that is, until the new US government started the whole thing about tariffs. Was this your first time in Canada? How did you come about the performance that you presented at Contemporary Art Forum, Kitchener + Area? Can you discuss what went on during this outlandish action in Ontario? 

Anti-cool: During CAFKA.05 X INDUSTRIA, we, the artists, stayed at the locals’ homes. That setting definitely gave me the introductory feel of Kitchener and also Canada; I was new to the country at that time. Later we both had a chance to exchange intriguing conversations with the local people.

Allurements of Mass Media was made from my reflection on how consumerism affected me on a personal level. As a person who lived through both the peak of consumerism in the 1980s and the subsequent post-bubble era of Japan, without even realising it, the effect of it was undeniable. I became indecisive facing the numerous products/choices, and oddly enough, I almost felt my self-value required to be validated by others. This might also be affected by experiencing the gender gap in societal reality as a woman. In the performance piece, there’s a TV monitor that showed several TV adverts played in Kitchener on a loop. While the commercials were on, the artist (myself) with a business suit and high-heeled shoes kept consuming the products, such as cleaning detergent, food, and cosmetics, while walking a balance beam from one side to the other. The performance was situated in various places in and around the city hall, including the Reflecting Pool at the open-air public area.

NDEREOM: How can I forget this performance and the riot that you created? If I may, I feel that consumerism is even more outrageous now than it was. It seems that we are approaching the last show on Earth, our own destruction, and I hope not. What is your relationship to scandals and disturbances? I am asking because of the uproar that many of your pieces have caused internationally. Like when you smoke a gazillion cigarettes? Also, how do you take care of yourself in the midst of such extreme undertakings? Can you talk about some of the works that I am implying here and the loud reactions from audiences world-wide?

A-c: Sometimes my pieces and projects can cause a few waves. In my early work I sometimes used cigarettes, and for some pieces I smoked a large quantity of cigarettes in public spaces where smoking was banned, such as the non-smoking area of a station in Niigata. My intention was to create a temporary smoking area and gradually extend such space using floor markings with tape while consuming cigarettes holding an ashtray. Ironically, I’ve never been a smoker outside of my performances.

In 2005 I held a lonesome Oktoberfest (beer festival) at a bar located at Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff. I heard there was an Oktoberfest at the venue a week before, which I missed, and I was interested in responding to it in my own way. My performance piece, another part of Allurements of Mass Media, was supposed to be presented at the venue for two nights to the audience. Since I wanted to do something open to everyone with or without a ticket, I asked the Head of Theatre, James Tyson, to allow me to present it in a public space on one of the dates. He and his team fully supported my experiment. I used about 40 bottles of beer and a balance beam, wearing my usual suit and high-heeled shoes. Regarding the media responses to this piece, one leading UK newspaper wrote an article called “Probably the worst art in the world”. I remember that I was upset about the false information about my age and the artist’s fee; however, I didn’t argue with their feedback at all. Soon after I returned to Japan, and was too busy doing my part-time jobs and working on my new pieces to care too much.

NDEREOM: What an honor. So much of the art I see today feels like homework that artists turn in to curators to exhibit. In your case the badness the reporter saw in your action was not mediocrity, it seems that your work really stroke a nerve in him. Well done!

I relate to you work through an approach that mimics gossip. Chisme. I like that. I remember hearing you talk about the one-person band that you formed in Haiti. Please say more about it

A-c: Lone Orchestra is a series of projects in which I imitated a local band’s performance. In fact, I have worked with four bands. For example, a pop band in Belfast, a drum-based rock band in Glasgow, a punk band in Montreal, and a Twoubadou band in Jacmel, Haiti—trying to master every different instrument and vocal style in three weeks. The result was that I jammed with other me’s in a video showing me playing all the roles in the bands simultaneously, singing, drumming etc. In 2009 I collaborated with a Haitian band that plays folk music using banjo and drum with some handmade instruments. Over there it was necessary to extend the three-week time frame due to my broken Haitian Creole, which I was strongly suggested to learn prior to my visit by the regional embassy. Also, their improvised playing made me confused to articulate the authentic notes. On some occasions, I felt as if I were becoming a historian who tries to document their versatile oral story. However, the project allowed me to look closely into the genuine persona of each band member, both on and off stage. My initial aim was to capture, through the project, the unique characteristics of the people in different cultures. I recalled myself been drawn to transformative moments that occurred during their jam sessions, and altered my aim to become invisible during the process.

NDEREOM: A great deal of music in places like Haiti and the Dominican Republic does not follow European canons, thank God. Also, much of our music is not meant to be listened to passively, but to dance it, to interact with it at a bodily level. I would not go to a concert to “listen” to merengue.

Back to performance, our practices are cousins, in the sense that you tend to travel to places that have no relationship to your home in Japan to develop work there. Does this happen naturally or was that an internal push that allowed you to leave your homeland?

A-c: Growing up right in front of the Pacific Ocean, I used to observe passing ships. Some of them are massive oil tankers and container ships, and I forgot the passage of time wondering about their journey and places beyond the sea. When I was three years old, my parents often played a record, Akai Kutsu—‘Red Shoes’. It’s a children’s song about a young girl wearing a pair of red shoes who departed for abroad from a port and never came back. On hot summer days, I sometimes fell asleep on the sofa, and the song echoed in my dream. Perhaps I was destined to leave my home country since I had held a strong urge since I was young.

NDEREOM: Chaos is present in many of your installations. You have worked with rubbish, as well as with discarded stuff. My understanding is that a great deal of this has to do with a critique on consumption and the reckless pursuit of capitalism by many. Why don’t you talk about your installations, and in specific about the exhibition that just opened in the UK?

A-c: The work I made during the first ten years of my practice indeed focused on the exploration of consumer society and human physical and mental limitations. In 2010, I used audience-interactive robotics in my performance, which was made with the support of my artist friend, Paul Granjon. I made a feeding costume with a spoon, ladle, and knife attached using recycled computer and printer parts. It is designed so that the audience can select food on the table, put it on the spoon or a ladle, and then the robot brings the food to my mouth, which I am then forced to eat. On the table I laid out various foods that reflect the local contemporary culture of where the performance took place.

Since 2014, I’ve been exploring the stories of marginalised people, coastal communities, borders that separate and the histories intrinsic to the landscapes of today. My latest project, Antiquarian Shore is formed as a sculptural multi-screen video containing the documentation of four shipwreck sites from the 19th century on the East Yorkshire coast, UK. The videos sit alongside an ephemeral sculpture tracing the ghost of a Coble boat made from over a thousand copper nails, made through collaboration with former fishermen and boatbuilders from the Coble society in Bridlington and an architect, Charlie MacKeith. The design was made with reference to the technical drawings from the archives of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. I was drawn to the subject after I heard each boatbuilder has their own unique way to build them. Since there is no boat making schools and they don't use any templates, therefore there are no records to pass on this tradition. Coble making is regarded as an endangered culture and I wanted to find out more about such unique boats.

NDEREOM: How was life in Japan as a performance artist? How is like in the UK as a non-conventional Japanese creative? I wish we could organize a reunion in Kitchener. I did get to enjoy that place, which showed me about life in Canada, which after all, is far from perfect. You and I got to experience the two sides of Kitchener—and there are probably many more: the upper and middle-class side, with beautiful homes, as well as the other side with people struggling with additions, with being unhoused, and with food insecurity, among other issues. We made connections on both sides.

A-c: I was fortunate to come across experienced practitioners like Seiji Shimoda, Tomomi Adachi and many more during my early tryout era. It’s been common that performance art events were organised by the artists, and there were a lot going on around Tokyo. Often such events brought artists from Asia, America, and Europe, and through accompanying the rehearsals and a tour, I learnt how other artists deal with objects, body, and space. Subsequently, this experience led me to plunge into organising events with a curator, Makoto Hashimoto and fellow artists, which included national and international guest artists.

The UK has an openness towards combined art, and luckily, the people I’ve worked with in the past encouraged me to take a risk.

Regarding living in the UK, artists sometimes relocate to areas with more affordable homes, more provincial cities and towns, with pockets of thriving culture. I’ve also moved cities and houses more than a handful of times. In such circumstances, I’ve lived in deprived areas where vulnerable adults and crime are often seen, and the regeneration plan to tackle the disparities takes much longer than anyone hopes to see any positive differences.

That’s a great idea to reunite in Kitchener, and if we could, it would be nice to propose a project that is specifically designed for the place and people of Kitchener.

NDEREOM: I would like to hear you talk about your life before and after performance art? You once mentioned that you used to work in an office in Japan. So much of my training as a performance artist has been inspired by the trillions of jobs that I have held: being a bartender who served the most potent drinks; to being a tutor to a group of several boys, one of whom told me that he was seven and that he was going to kick my ass.

A-c: Haha, glad to hear that we had common backgrounds in our non-performance work. I have to admit I undertook many different jobs in the past. Among them, a secretary job at the embassy and a food factory labourer on night shifts were surreal. For the latter job, I developed the experience into a performance piece by highlighting behind-the-scenes production of cheap food products. In the piece, £1 Running Sushi, 11 local people in Cardiff and I made 160 sushi lunch boxes on a conveyor belt, as quickly and as tidily as possible.

NDEREOM: I feel that whenever we meet, we activate performance. Do you recall the time you visited me in the Bronx and I went to give you a pair of socks, only that they were not socks but a G-string I had bought to dance in a performance. How was New York?

A-c: Yes, I was laughing so hard that I rolled on the floor. You kindly fetched it because there was a hole in my sock. Do you remember you served me some edible insects? They were orangy, crunchy, and a little bit sour…

New York was a place full of surprises, and I liked the subway rides and striking architecture. In streets, shops, and cafes I had some opportunities to have dialogue with the locals. What struck me was their boldness and straightforward expressions. A group of teenagers threw harsh criticism at me about my washed gradation denim, which was in fact my favourite pair.

NDEREOM: What is on your mind these days? It is too bad we were not able to meet this year in the UK, but the time will come. Also, is there any other performance that you would like to elaborate on and which I have not heard about?

A-c: I feel my practice has shifted over the last ten years. I now mainly use video installation and film for my practice. It started like this… in 2013 I bought a used video camera to self-document the process of trying to master the constructed language called Esperanto in 60 days, using only free learning tools. The experiment later took me on a journey from Japan to Buenos Aires to join the World Esperanto Congress to meet other Esperanto speakers to find out their political, philosophical, and personal beliefs through such linguistic movement. The subsequent film, Plena Rondo —Leaving Language— was launched via a Global Screening Day on 21st October 2017, where viewers watched from UK, Japan, Canada, Australia and Brazil. This was the start of my making audiovisual work. But who knows? When it’s the right time, I’ll make a performance piece. Yes, it’d be great to see you again.

NDEREOM: If you would like to ask me anything, this the time! Thank you, dear Anti-Cool for being so untrue to your name and actually being so freaking Cool!

A-c: Do you recall you and I visited the monastery in Bronx and we were both astonished by hearing the nuns pray 24/7, and they never leave the convent? Thereafter you undertook a performance piece at the monastery. Would you tell me what your experience was and what their reactions were? Animals and humans receive intuitions on a daily basis. Do you follow your intuition? If so, when was the last time that the hunch made you disappointed? Your luggage was almost as big as you in Kitchener. Apart from your props, what’s in it?

NDEREOM: My friends at the monastery supported me during an experience for which I spent seven days with them helping with the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, which is the body of Christ as understood in Catholic Theology. We took turns. They would rest at night while I engaged in adoration during the night. This taught me so much about commitment and focus. I wish I could share more, but I promised to talk about this experience once a year, during seven consecutive years, and then stop talking about it.

I try to follow my intuition these days. When I was younger, I used to push things. I was of a mind that I would not take no for a response. I am still a bit the same, except that I am learning to let go and let be. There are things that are not meant to happen, and there are things that are meant to happen later. I believe that I am surrounded by angels, and it the past I made these angels work too hard. I am also trying not to do that and to give them the breaks and vacations that they deserve. Some days I wonder how I have made this long and it is intuition and a higher/deeper power who has guided me. I can be attuned to different realities. There has been moments when I have travelled to other worlds and then been abruptly dropped back here. The heart knows and intuition can be found in this organ. The heart knows, but do I really listen to the heart? I am trying…

Gosh! I wish I would remember about my suitcase? Could it be all of the different clothing I meant to wear during the action for which I worked at a hotel, at Tim Horton’s, at a thrift store, at a soup kitchen…in Kitchener? I now travel with a tiny suitcase. I am almost 60 and I am hoping to make things easier for myself. I am a complex being by nature, and carrying a tiny suitcase helps. Maybe books? I do carry massive amounts of books that I purchase second hand wherever I go.

A-c: Thanks a lot for this, Nicolás. It’s such a great pleasure, and I truly appreciate this dialogue with you. 

Images courtesy of Anti-cool

Anti-cool is a UK based Japanese artist who creates primarily through collaborative activity. Using audio visual storytelling, performance and installation, her aim is to explore the histories intrinsic to the landscapes of today, tell the stories of marginalised people and borders that separate. The unique cultural heritages of her collaborators are often central themes of the work. Past solo exhibitions/screenings include Antiquarian Shore at HOME Arches (Manchester, 2025), Tea and Sugarcane at FACT (Liverpool, 2024), UNESCO International Day for Monuments and Sites at Aveiro City Museum (Aveiro, 2022), LUNA at CCA Annex (Online, 2021), and On Returning at Toynbee Studios, Artsadmin (London, 2019).