Misaki Iseri
miseri920@gmail.com
Hiyake
日焼け (hi-ya-ke): 1. Sunburn 2. Photo degradation Memories of the past are inherently mediated. From Japan’s oppressive past, post-war reconstruction to modern day capitalist tourism, I explore themes of selective historical remembrance and the shaping of “nationhood” as a consciousness, predominantly through the voice and photographs of my grandfather who gives an episodic memory retelling of his life. The collision between my grandfather's narration and my destructive, manipulative editing of it in the film begins to resemble the process of constructing "nationhood". I draw inspiration from the theorist Alison Landsberg’s concept of "prosthetic memory", which explores mass media’s role in pushing certain historical narratives to assimilate as the viewer’s personal experience. This links to my self-reflection as a Japanese who has always lived abroad; the conflicting nature of the nation's contested past whilst simultaneously benefitting from its soft power exports resembles my life here. I am no longer Japanese, but ‘Japan’ itself.