TOKYO — Japanese artist collective Chim Pom has opened an artist-run gallery called Garter in the Kitakore Building in Tokyo’s Koenji district.The inaugural exhibition is devoted to Sono Sion, one of Japan’s most decorated cult filmmakers who has won awards at the Sundance Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival, and Rotterdam Film Festival. Before his flourishing cinematic career took off, however, Sion was a polymath talent who wrote poetry, published picture books, staged theatrical performances and guerilla happenings on the streets of Tokyo with the collective Tokyo Gagaga, and performed in a comedic duo with Suidobashi Hakase.This exhibition is named for Sion’s upcoming feature “Whispering Star,” a film inspired by the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster that is slated to be released in 2016, and also features a video archive of performances by Tokyo Gagaga, as well as his upcoming happening, Hachiko Project.The cast of “Whispering Star” is mostly played by people who were evacuated from the area around the Fukushima nuclear plants, who find themselves cloaked in a mysterious shroud of hushed whispers. Originally written in 1990 as a sci-fi flick, the film represents Sion’s meditation on Japanese society since March 2011.Meanwhile, Sion has six titles slated for release this year, including a new adaptation of Yusuke Yamada’s novel “Riaru Onigokko,” in which female schoolgirls across the nation suddenly find themselves besieged by a troupe of invisible, bloodthirsty demons. The tagline is “you’ve all been a little too shameless, so we’ve decided to thin your ranks.”Sono Sion’s “Whispering Star” runs through July 26, 2015 at Garter (Kitakore Building, 3-4-13 Koenji Kita, Suginami-ku, Tokyo 166-0002).Follow @ARTINFOJapan
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