Une pluie de sardines
LE SON DES VAGUES NOIRES
(The sound of the black waves)
‘The sound of the black waves’ reflects the state of mind I have been in for several years. Working frankly on my concerns of the moment, on what worries me or nourishes me, is, I believe, working frankly on myself and what I am.
Here, it is a part of myself that I'm revealing to you, my memories, my thoughts, my dreams. But there is no need to find a clever conclusion.
In progress. More soon.
Mishiko
HIKARI
Hikari is a Japanese word meaning ‘light’.
This work represents my compulsion to build and shape my own memory. To reconstitute some facts I haven’t experienced myself, but which have unconsciously influenced me while growing up.
My grandparents witnessed the war; survivors who finally passed away and whose memories will soon be a part of history.
Only once did we speak about their experiences during the war. They told me how illness can take away your sisters, the shame, the relief after the war, and the watermelons.
But after that night we never talked about it again. It was as if my grandparents gave me their memories as a whisper through the air before allowing it to disappear from their minds.
I would say that I somehow borrowed their memories. I use their stories as a source of inspiration for my own testimony.
Portrait de famille
OMOIDE POROPORO
Omoide Poroporo is a Japanese expression meaning ‘memories like falling rain’.
I usually find it hard to talk about myself. I always stumble in the paradoxes of ‘who am I?’.
In terms of factual information, I must surely appear to be the most well-informed person about my own self. But as soon as I need to talk about who I am, I tend to do it through filters, selecting what I want to communicate, and how I wish to do it, in accordance with my interests and sensitivity.
So what can be the objective value of the way that I picture my family and my life? How much does it concretely relate to reality or not?
Autoportrait en poulpe
GAIJIN
Gaijin is a Japanese word meaning ‘foreigner’.
My name is David Takashi Favrod. I was born on 2 July 1982 in Kobe, to a Japanese mother and a Swiss father.
When I was 6 months old, my parents decided to come and live in Switzerland, more precisely in Vionnaz, a little village in lower Valais. As my father had to travel for his work a lot, I was mainly brought up by my mother who taught me her principles and her culture.
When I was 18, I asked for dual nationality at the Japanese embassy, but they refused because it is only given to Japanese women who wish to obtain their husband’s nationality.
It is from this feeling of rejection and also from a desire to prove that I am as Japanese as I am Swiss that this work was created. ‘Gaijin’ is a fictional recital, a tool in my quest for identity, where self-portraits imply an intimate and solitary relationship that I have with myself. The mirror image is frozen in a figurative alter ego that serves as an anchor point.
The aim of this work is to create ‘my own Japan’, in Switzerland, from memories of my journeys when I was small, from my mother’s stories, from popular and traditional culture and from my grandparents war recitals.