MIKI NITADORI
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  • About
  • Artist statement
  • Contact
  • Workshop & Conferences
  • News / blah blah
  • Art Objects
    • A-lien Pacific 2018
    • Odyssey : reflect artist book 2014 - 2018
  • Visual works
    • Odyssey : reflect orginal works 2013 -2015
    • Gratitude 2017
    • Catherine's Pier 2017
    • Post-script 2013 - 2018
    • Blond Ambition 2008
    • Combat : Manual for daily survival original works 2003 -2008
    • Triumph 2004
  • Exhibitions & Installations
    • Odyssey : Reflect Exhibition / Installation 2014-2018
    • Combat exhibition 2008
  • Participative & community projects
    • Timelesshugs: August - December 2015
    • Timelesshugs: January - February 2016
    • Timelesshugs: Arles 2016
    • Timeless hugs: Bandstand
    • Combat in progress 2008
  • Interventions & collaborations
    • A-lien cuisine 2018
    • Aloha Phantasm 2015
    • Humility Quest 2014
    • I am humility 2015
    • one night in the gallery 2015
  • Written pieces
    • Mini dictionary of aqua-humility 2015
    • Slapping 2015
    • Slurp piece : Eat noodle or die 2015
  • Older works
    • Interface 2010
    • Transform part one 2010
      • Transform origin 1895 - 1960
    • Looking for "tree in the sun" 2010
    • Combat mini video 2007
    • water field 1997, 2007
    • Paradises lost 2000, 2005
    • seesaw spotting 1997-2001
  • Videos
    • Odyssey : Reflect book
    • On Odyssey : Reflect installation, Rome 2016
    • Odyssey : Reflect Exhibition, installation walk 2016
    • What is timelesshugs? 2016
    • Timeless hugs: Call to the workers at Mac Val 2016
    • Timeless hugs: Call for participation, Arles 2016
  • project proposition
    • Ecology & waste
    • Textile as a form of Cultural heritage & Community
  • Research
  • Home
  • About
  • Artist statement
  • Contact
  • Workshop & Conferences
  • News / blah blah
  • Art Objects
    • A-lien Pacific 2018
    • Odyssey : reflect artist book 2014 - 2018
  • Visual works
    • Odyssey : reflect orginal works 2013 -2015
    • Gratitude 2017
    • Catherine's Pier 2017
    • Post-script 2013 - 2018
    • Blond Ambition 2008
    • Combat : Manual for daily survival original works 2003 -2008
    • Triumph 2004
  • Exhibitions & Installations
    • Odyssey : Reflect Exhibition / Installation 2014-2018
    • Combat exhibition 2008
  • Participative & community projects
    • Timelesshugs: August - December 2015
    • Timelesshugs: January - February 2016
    • Timelesshugs: Arles 2016
    • Timeless hugs: Bandstand
    • Combat in progress 2008
  • Interventions & collaborations
    • A-lien cuisine 2018
    • Aloha Phantasm 2015
    • Humility Quest 2014
    • I am humility 2015
    • one night in the gallery 2015
  • Written pieces
    • Mini dictionary of aqua-humility 2015
    • Slapping 2015
    • Slurp piece : Eat noodle or die 2015
  • Older works
    • Interface 2010
    • Transform part one 2010
      • Transform origin 1895 - 1960
    • Looking for "tree in the sun" 2010
    • Combat mini video 2007
    • water field 1997, 2007
    • Paradises lost 2000, 2005
    • seesaw spotting 1997-2001
  • Videos
    • Odyssey : Reflect book
    • On Odyssey : Reflect installation, Rome 2016
    • Odyssey : Reflect Exhibition, installation walk 2016
    • What is timelesshugs? 2016
    • Timeless hugs: Call to the workers at Mac Val 2016
    • Timeless hugs: Call for participation, Arles 2016
  • project proposition
    • Ecology & waste
    • Textile as a form of Cultural heritage & Community
  • Research
Picture
Mac val, Photo : Nataska Roublov, Nov 2015
Timelesshugs : Remove time, purpose, fear and goal.

A simple encounter, two strangers hugging timelessly in a public / semi-public space. Created with Nataska Roublov (as the unit MNR) from August 2015 to July 2016. The action consisted of hugging another for longest time as possible, aiming for more than twenty minutes. It lasted up to one and a half hours. We invited participants; friends, strangers from an online dating site, creating both a network, and a random encounter on the spot. The action was usually not announced to the public - we would insert the action without giving any explanation to the audience. We liked it to be viewed as accidental, another chance encounter.

Can two strangers trust each other, let one another in their personal space? What do participants feel and think during this experience? As observers we question the relationship between the action and the space, and what is happening during this time. In our society, where the social code is precise and essential, how do people react
to the unexpected?

Why timelesshugs?

After working on Slapping, Nataska Roblov and I (as MNR), realized that this violence in a public space, in the form of slapping, lasting only a few seconds, did not concern other people. Most of the time, people were indifferent. When it was longer than three slaps, it became a theatrical / mechanical act, that no one believed was real.
I proposed the opposite act, hugging, for as long as possible, in a public or semi-public space.
I thought, people today are more uncomfortable and fearful about intimacy and trust than about violence. In today’s Occidental society, everyone chooses, according to their desire, with whom one shares an intimacy. This was not the case a hundred years ago. It is a development of human rights, but it may also have eroded a durability in our relationships to another and the family structure.
In a society where people choose according to their desire, hugging is something much more controversial with a stranger. It seems easier to have sex with strangers for many people than to just hug. Hugging seems to be corny, and sex is more radical, cool and feeds one's desire. But is it really this way? Hugging, as a form of contemplation shared with another for duration of time, is very satisfying. We knew this project would be difficult and this is why we decided to proceed with it. The “Free hugs” movement in the early 2000's were an interesting, yet superficial and paradoxical, movement that symbolized the Occidental capitalistic structure. As the hugging was brief, it was less challenging and gave less time to process the experience. The word “ timeless” means that when one hugs over a certain time, time becomes an abstract notion. We used both meanings - the length of time and the quality of experience. After a certain time hugging, the body chemistry changes. The longer the time, the more things happen to the participants.
It does not follow the tendency of much of today’s art: “Bad is cool, mockery is art, art is ugly, twisting banality is art, invisibility is the way”, nor is it “anti-demonstration”. It is usually aesthetic - the documents are often beautifully photographed, and action takes place in mostly aesthetic places with people around.
Sometimes it looks as if it is a demonstration.
Timeless hugs is a full and deep experience for the participants, where questions of doubt and trust (that leads to questions) arises from participants and the public. It mainly starts with an instinctive reaction rather than rational thinking.

All were documented with photographs and recorded interviews.
©Miki Nitadori 2020, All rights reserved
  • Home
  • About
  • Artist statement
  • Contact
  • Workshop & Conferences
  • News / blah blah
  • Art Objects
    • A-lien Pacific 2018
    • Odyssey : reflect artist book 2014 - 2018
  • Visual works
    • Odyssey : reflect orginal works 2013 -2015
    • Gratitude 2017
    • Catherine's Pier 2017
    • Post-script 2013 - 2018
    • Blond Ambition 2008
    • Combat : Manual for daily survival original works 2003 -2008
    • Triumph 2004
  • Exhibitions & Installations
    • Odyssey : Reflect Exhibition / Installation 2014-2018
    • Combat exhibition 2008
  • Participative & community projects
    • Timelesshugs: August - December 2015
    • Timelesshugs: January - February 2016
    • Timelesshugs: Arles 2016
    • Timeless hugs: Bandstand
    • Combat in progress 2008
  • Interventions & collaborations
    • A-lien cuisine 2018
    • Aloha Phantasm 2015
    • Humility Quest 2014
    • I am humility 2015
    • one night in the gallery 2015
  • Written pieces
    • Mini dictionary of aqua-humility 2015
    • Slapping 2015
    • Slurp piece : Eat noodle or die 2015
  • Older works
    • Interface 2010
    • Transform part one 2010
      • Transform origin 1895 - 1960
    • Looking for "tree in the sun" 2010
    • Combat mini video 2007
    • water field 1997, 2007
    • Paradises lost 2000, 2005
    • seesaw spotting 1997-2001
  • Videos
    • Odyssey : Reflect book
    • On Odyssey : Reflect installation, Rome 2016
    • Odyssey : Reflect Exhibition, installation walk 2016
    • What is timelesshugs? 2016
    • Timeless hugs: Call to the workers at Mac Val 2016
    • Timeless hugs: Call for participation, Arles 2016
  • project proposition
    • Ecology & waste
    • Textile as a form of Cultural heritage & Community
  • Research