Author: iki

thoughts for tomorrow, movements for today

thoughts for tomorrow, movements for today is an archiving project to witness, learn, honor and inspire ideas and actions that shape respect and care between people and their living environments. I use videography to learn care practices and transcorporeal embodiment––between human bodies, water bodies, watersheds, and more than human species–in the context of the climate crisis. This practice produces video recordings of concrete actions, which I call movements for today.  In conjunction, I gather written texts, audio video recordings of people’s ideas, thoughts and methods of slowing down climate crisis and building equitable future.  This collection, consisting of both my original footage and material found, I call thoughts for tomorrow.  With the recordings generated and material aggregated, I produce videos, installations, performances and gatherings to share and activate the archive in the effort to nurture and inspire more connections between people and the ecosystem they live within.

Path:
In March 2019, the project emerged during my residency at MARSH where I recorded visions and practices of the MARSH’s founding members-Esther Neff, Beth Neff and Kiai Gilje.  Shortly after I spent a week with Raphaelle Ottones and recorded her practice of taking care of her organic vineyard in Richeaume, France.   In both places, I noticed different gestures and sounds from their actions and nature in their engagements with land, water, and the plants.  Inspired by those visions and actions, I wanted to find ways to engage with natural areas in New York City the place where I live and work.
In 2020, I started to participate in numerous NYC Parks stewardship programs: cutting non-native plants, picking up discarded items, planting sea grasses and trees, and monitoring horseshoe crabs. From my experience and memories of doing these stewardship actions, I begun recording others doing these actions.  From the recordings, I am exploring different ways to activate the archive, some of which can be seen below:

ACTIVATIONS:
work environmental at FEED Media Art Center, November 2023-January 2024
movements for today (showcase of publicly available videos)
Seed session at The Nature of City Festival, March, 2022

Partners:
MARSH (2019 Artists in Residency), Walter Dundervill, Culture Push, Inc (2021 Associate Artist), Brooklyn Art Exchange (2021 Fall Parent Artist Space Grant), iLAND, New York City Parks, The Nature of Cities (2022 Festival Participation), Coney Island Beautification Project, Nora Almeida FEED (2023 Artists in Residency)

Featured image: video still from the recording of Saltmarsh cordgrass at Sunset Cove, Queens, Queens, NYC.

work environmental

November-December, 2023
Five channels of video with three channels of audio at FEED Media Art Center, Erie, PA, U.S.A

During the residency at FEED Media Art Center, I created work environmental: an immersive audio video installation in a distinctive loft in FEED’s building that was under construction. Audiovisual recordings of people’s various conservation actions on the New York City shoreline are projected on walls and suspended fabrics along with ambient sounds of nature and industrial noise, inviting the audience to a sensory experience of what it is like to be with the actions in urban nature. Might this sensory experience elevate restorative acts of care for nature, wildlife and humans?

The exhibition was open to public by appointment, and during three tours held by the FEED during their programing.  Over one hundred people from the age of preteen to octogenarian visited the installation.

This work is an activation of the archive culminated from the project “thoughts for tomorrow, movements for today.”

A documentary of the work produced by FEED Media Art Center
Shot by iki nakagawa, Benton C Bainbridge and Tyler Akam, and edited by Collin Bonner and Benton C Bainbridge, 2023.

Tina Satter at the Kitchen

Recorded on HD video with Sony PMW-200

Tina Satter/Half Straddle’s “Is This A Room: REALITY WINNER VERBATIM TRANSCRIPTION” on January 9, 2019.

Videography: Iki Nakagawa

Concept and Direction by Tina Satter.
Performed by: Becca Blackwell, Emily Davis, Pete Simpson and T.L. Thompson
Score by Sanae Yamada.
Costume Design by Enver Chakartash.
Set Design by Parker Lutz.
Lighting Design by Thomas Dunn.
Sculptural Design by Amanda Villalobos.
Production and Stage Management by Randi Rivera.
Assistant Direction and Stage Management by Mariana Catalina.

Arena Triptych

2016
Collaboration with Walter Dundervill
Three channel video and mix media installation at Abrons Arts Center, NYC, NY.
The video consists of a documentation of Walter Dundervill’s Arena, performed at Jack and PS1 in 2015 and 2016, and landscape footage, both of which were recorded by Iki.   Three videos were projected along with cellphones and mylar that were installed by Dundervill.
The installation was part of the exhibition called “Reexamine the space” curated by Josh Lubin-Levy from September 26-October 23, 2016. The photograph is taken by Frank Mullaney.

Leadership Talks from ICPP

Leadership Talks from ICPP*:
Kristy Edmunds on Cultural Memory as Performance Archive
Shot and edited by Iki Nakagawa
Sound by David Scaringe
Recorded on HD Video with Sony PMW200
*The Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance (ICPP) is a center for the academic study of the presentation and contextualization of contemporary performance at Wesleyan University.

King of White Collar Boxing David Lawrence


2016
Length: 4:40
A 4 min portrait of David Lawrence, a boxer, a poet, and diligent practitioner of both forms; for the last twenty plus years, he had never missed a day of training at the gym and working on his writing. The video was commissioned by David Lawrence for the launch of his latest book, a memoir, King of White Collar Boxing (Rain Mountain Press, 2nd ed. 2016.
Videography (Direction, Camera and Editing): Iki Nakagawa
Second Camera: Kristian Borysevicz