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Visiting Artist Betty Apple* from GA residence program TEA+* will hold a collective creation workshop by end of June. All current students in Geidai are welcome to participate, so please feel free to apply.

*GA Residence Program TEA+ Official Website
*Betty Apple English Profile

“The Future I ___?” — To See or To Change
A Collective Creation Workshop
Date: June 30 (Mon)
Time: 6~8 pm
Venue: Taki Plaza 3F, Ueno Campus
Language: Mainly in English
Eligibility for Application: Geidai Students can apply freely
  *Maximum of 20 people. The form will close once the maximum number of participants has been reached.
  *Note to participants: Please wear comfortable clothes and shoes.

 

In recent years, my performance works have explored themes such as mermaids, digital-age cults, internet prophecies, future beings, and AI — forming a kind of post-sci-fi performance language. I often use symbolic objects from daily life, and recently, space blankets have become a key material in my creation of live art and sound.
During my current residency at Tokyo University of the Arts, I encountered a viral phenomenon spreading across social media in Taiwan and Hong Kong: a “dream prophecy” drawn by Japanese manga artist Tatsuki Ryou, titled 私が見た未来 （The Future I Saw）. It depicts a vision of an apocalyptic tsunami spanning Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. This eerie image has caused real-life anxiety — people canceling trips, feeling uneasy, even wondering: Could this actually happen?
Faced with this blurred boundary between prophecy and reality, between fiction and belief, I found inspiration for my residency work — a performance shaped by the surreal logic of foreseen disasters.
Through this workshop, I want to invite fellow artists to explore how absurd realities might be transformed into hyperreal live performances. Taking Amabie — the viral yokai mermaid circulated during the COVID pandemic as a charm to ward off disease — as a symbolic anchor, we will call them into our voices, our bodies, and our shared performative space.
Using objects from emergency kits — such as space blankets — as ritual media, this workshop invites collective creation. Together, we will use art to intervene in those circulating “prophecies” on the internet, and conduct a shared inquiry into the live body of performance art.
— from Betty Apple–

Images of the Workshop:

Betty Apple Performance work <Mermaid Escape Room: The Pink Trap> SPAZIOMENSA, Rome, 2025, photo by Mirko JJ Ostuni

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