Video Artist Talk

Taro Hattori

Exinclusivity: Space of Inclusion

In the first version of his"Exinclusivity" series, Taro asked people to get out of a cell after singing by destroying the walls around them. In this project, once criticized as being exploitative, he wanted to explore the ambivalent character of borders which, when they come from within, define us, but also, when they come from outside, deprive our freedom and exclude us from the rest of the world as "others." Working with refugee communities today, Hattori uses the wall both metaphorically and physically so that it contains and fails to contain their stories of conflict.

→Taro Hattori is a Senior Adjunct Professor who has been teaching in the Graduate Program in Fine Art, Photography Program, Individualized Major and First Year Program. He received his M.F.A in Time Arts/Video from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and his BA in Clinical Psychology from Sophia University, Tokyo, and studied theater design at Rutgers University, New Jersey. Taro Hattori’s installations respond directly to both the built and intangible elements of a specific environment through "installing" his work or and setting up dynamic situations. With backgrounds in theater set design and music, Hattori creates installations telling stories that are activated by the tension between objects, specificity of site and viewers. Hattori has been showing his work nationally and internationally.
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