No Man’s Land, an atypical exhibition at the French Embassy, opened to the public for the first time before its demolition…After moving to a new building, the French Embassy in Tokyo invited nearly 200 French and Japanese artists—both internationally renowned and emerging—to create site-specific works in its former premises, which are slated for destruction. The artworks took over every indoor and outdoor space: offices, corridors, archives, staircases, basement, gardens… All fields of creation are represented, from visual arts to fashion, as well as design, architecture, and performance.

No Man’s Land A no man’s land is represented through a multitude of “passport”-sized cards, printed on the front in the colors of the French and Japanese flags. Placed side by side, their combination creates an encryption of the two flags—an imaginary nation—within which a labyrinth can be seen. This wall of cards evokes the political separation between two spaces. On the back, silver-tinted faces also cover the wall, and the folding of the cards produces a double image depending on the viewer’s standpoint. The silver glitter picks up the colors reflected by the flags. Walking along the wall, one discovers the faces hidden behind the flags—a two-step reading revealed through movement, guiding us from the political to the human.

Bruise Like a mark, a bruise, this series plays with the red circle of the Japanese flag to evoke memory. It suggests the metamorphosis of identity that occurs when encountering a new culture. One never returns the same from a country visited. It is also from abroad that one understands one’s own country best. This series expresses the indelible imprint left by Japanese culture on my own.

Release A blend of faces and satellite images of melting glaciers, this series evokes the strange duality between the mortal danger faced by a person venturing into a no man’s land, and the mortal danger faced by the environment wherever humans settle. A pessimistic vision of human, political, and ecological coexistence—one in which humanity always ends up losing.

Exhibition curated by Hélène Kelmachter & Antoine Perrin.