Sim Chi Yin’s solo exhibition The Mountain That Hid, the artist’s first exhibition in Japan, takes place at Datsuijo between January 6th to January 24th, 2024. In the exhibition, curated by Matthew Lawson Garrett, a film and an artist book by Sim Chi Yin that reread colonial history through personal narratives will be presented in Japanese for the first time.

In her film The Mountain That Hid, Sim traces the path her grandfather took after he was forcibly extradited to China by British colonial forces for suspected involvement in communist and anti-colonial activities. Sim juxtaposes the image of a tunnel in Singapore, a symbolic passageway on her grandfather's forced journey, with evocative images of Sim’s ancestral home in Meixian, Guangdong Province where he lived in exile before being executed nearby by Chinese Nationalist Party soldiers. In her artist book She Never Rode That Trishaw Again, Sim uses personal family archives to weave together a narrative of her grandmother’s life after the deportation and murder of her husband. Sim’s narrative traces the local effects of colonial violence on the lives of individuals, and the resilience necessary to live under the silencing effects of that violence. The exhibition will feature a reading room for the artist book.

Only people with bookings will be informed of the address of Datsuijo. The location is an 8-minute walk from Nippori station. Please make a reservation at least one day before you would like to visit the space.

Please click here for more information.

Image: Installation view by Yu Kitahara