Last summer, I worked at the reception counter for an installation show called “the Last Classroom” by French artists, Christian Boltanski and Jean Kalman, in the northern prefecture, Niigata, Japan. This exhibition was held as a part of Niigata Art Triennial, which was initiated with the idea to bring people back to depopulated Niigata from cities once again and to bridge between people in the urban and countryside. Over the years of rapid urbanization, cities drew more and more people in, and agricultural lands like Niigata faced serious depopulation. Boltanski and Kalman’s installation triggered the feeling of emptiness and solitariness of Niigata.
Boltanski and Kalman’s installation, “the Last Classroom,” was exhibited through an entire abandoned elementary school. The first space to be entered to was the gymnasium. When I entered, I smelled the hay, which was spread thick on the floor, and I felt the wind blown by multiple electric fans standing on the hay, swinging their head slowly, up and down, left and right, as if they were little kids. The entire gym was dark and only lit by the dim light bulbs hang from the ceiling, and abstract shadows of human figures were projected on all four walls and the image constantly moved and froze according to the speed of people walking in the space. The projected shadows and their rapid movement depicted the activity, which used to be undertaken in the gym. Furthermore, the personified electric fans, the moving shadows and the dim light bulbs, all together made the gym a commemorative space for the past, when it was filled with kids and teachers. What is ironic about this recreation of space is that it is the mechanical objects and digital medium that fills the space—the activities are now replaced by non-living entities.
After going through the gym, I walked under light bulbs hang along a long dark hallway. The light bulbs were set with sensors, which captured the audience’s motion, and they lightened and dimmed as if they were breathing. Then I entered a science room. It was pitch black, and as soon as I stepped in, a light bulb centered in the room flashed constantly with a sound of heartbeats. Skeletal models and other scientific objects appeared every time the light flashed, and that made a mysterious and ghostly feeling. The hallway and the science room both were recreated as if they were alive—living in the solitude in which the school was abandoned due to the depopulation. Again, the sense of aliveness is constructed with non-living objects, light bulbs and sounds, in both spaces. Christian Boltanski often uses electric mediums for his work, which deals with the theme of absence and death. Moreover, coming from a Jewish background, he has done many installations, which commemorate the death of Jews caused by Nazis. In his recent works, including “the Last Classroom,” I noticed that he is using not only electric media but also digital media such as sound, projector, and motion sensor to make the mood of space even more expressive.
In “the Last Classroom,” Boltanski is trying to recreate the lost aliveness. His use of objects and digital media, the non-living, triggers the notion of emptiness and solitude of the space. As an audience, I did not feel only sorrowful about the space but also felt that this school should be filled with kids once again instead of the non-living. Boltanski’s construction of absence and solitary space, which triggers the audience to wish for people to come back to the space, works very well with this initial idea of this Niigata Art Triennial. I am always impressed and inspired by artists who make spaces, which transmit certain moods and feelings to audiences. Boltanski’s installation is certainly one of the works I am influenced by. It has inspired me to explore in the possibilities of digital media that create miracle spaces in which digital media transform the space into a breathing body.
the gym: when the shadows are moving rapidly
the hallway
