Koki Tanaka: Reading Aloud People’s Names in the Community

19 April 2016 – 26 April 2016

Workshop: 19 April 2016, 9.15am–12.15pm, King Solomon Academy
Workshop: 26 April 2016, 9.15–11.00am, King Solomon Academy
Performance: 26 April 2016, 11.15am–12pm, outside Church Street Library

We know the names of specific people, however the name of someone you don’t know can seem abstract. In this action a group of 10 schoolchildren from King Solomon Academy were asked to collect names in class and on the street. They were asked, and in turn asked others, to “Tell us names of people in this community”, “Who do you know?”. Their lists include people who live in the area, now or in the past, and people who have passed away. The children did a public reading of their lists of collected names outside Church Street Library, through which the names became a temporary and imaginary community.

Koki Tanaka, 2016

Part of Koki Tanaka’s commission Provisional Studies: Action ## 5 Conceiving the Past, Perceiving the Present, which is in the third and final round of How to work together commissions.

How to work together is a shared programme of contemporary art commissioning and research organised by The Showroom, Chisenhale Gallery and Studio Voltaire, and is supported by a capacity building and match-funding grant from Arts Council England through Catalyst Arts, with additional funding from Bloomberg and Jerwood Charitable Foundation. With additional funding for the 2016 commissions from Cockayne – Grants for the Arts and The London Community Foundation.

The commission is also supported by Vitamin Creative Space, The Japan Foundation, The Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation and the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation.

Liverpool Biennial and The Showroom are working in partnership on the commissioning of Koki Tanaka’s work in 2016.