Takuro kotaka (Japan)
Born in 1984, lives and works in Tokyo.
Kotaka is a cross-disciplinary artist concerned with the everyday experiences of people he encounters on his travels. Working with performance, installation and video Kotaka addresses questions of cultural communication, otherness, history and narrative. In 2010, after hearing a rumour that ‘there are no potatoes in Egypt’ Kotaka bought a potato in South Africa and traveled across the African continent for seven months to Egypt, visiting 14 countries along the way. The resultant work Traveling Africa with a Potato takes the form of documentation and a video installation and records Kotaka’s encounters with the people he met on the journey. Recent exhibitions, 2011; "Social Dive"tokyo, "Looking for a utopia" Melbourne, "Future Vision" Beijing, "56th International movie festival Oberhauzen" Germany, 2010; "/+\=X" Cape town, 2010; "Jakarta biennale 2009"Jakarta, 2009; "Istanbul international film festival" Istanbul, 2007; "Artist as Activist" Tokyo, 2007; "Tokyo-San Francisco Art Festival" San Francisco.