Meiro Koizumi

The Angels of Testimony, a video installation by the Japanese artist Meiro Koizumi, centres on a 99-year-old war veteran named Hajime Kondo. Kondo fought in the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) and his detailed accounts of the gruesome war crimes he committed during the conflict were recorded in a book. He is one of the few people in Japanese society to have spoken openly about the atrocities committed by Japan during the war. Years later, in an extremely emotional interview, Koizumi (Japan, 1976) confronted the man with his own testimony. By that point, however, Kondo had become old and fragile and was barely able to speak. He had large gaps in his memory as well. Yet in dreams, he continued to be tormented by the traumas and guilt complexes that held him captive.

Guilt, shame and deeply-rooted taboos about Japan’s role in the Second World War are recurring themes in Koizumi’s oeuvre. Through The Angels of Testimony, he explores the relationship between the guilt felt by an individual and the collective or national guilt that can emerge from war. What meaning does such national guilt have when you yourself played no part in the events? And when those events happened decades before you were born? Can shame be passed down from one generation to another?

Alongside the interview, Koizumi has arranged two large screens showing footage of a group of young performers. These actors recite Kondo’s shocking words in the enclosed space of a sound studio and out in the street, in public. Their voices – by turns whispering, questioning and screaming – convey resignation, rage and fear. It is as if, by doing so, they are seeking out a ritual that will enable them to literally embody his stories and this episode of history – and thereby come to terms with the past. In this way, Koizumi attempts to close the gap between society and the individual. At the same time, the performers evoke associations with the voices in Kondo’s head that continue to torment him even now, when his memory is failing. Koizumi does not judge his subject. Instead, he creates an intimate portrait of the complexity of history and of human emotions.