'What one can do as an attempt to really understand these situations, although it is doomed to be a failure?' 
 

Prompted by the comments repeatedly heard in the news footage of the Syrian refugees - “I (or We) have nothing.”, I presented 'A Bridge Too Far,' a 5-day durational performance that was plain experimentation on imagining and understanding the situations of others.
I stayed in a gallery for 5 days starting with having nothing other than an iPad (since the second experiment it has become iPhone) and the charger. The images I recorded in Fukushima in 2012, 2014 and 2015 were shown on a monitor.

 

Together with the images from Fukushima, this piece talks about the impossibility of gaining an understanding of the experiences that one has never experienced her/himself before, just by looking at the images or taking them as mere ʻinformationʼ. Yet, this performance also points out that this impossibility is a reason for the wish or/and desire to understand the other, and sows the seed for the communication, towards sympathy and compassion.
 

During the 5 days my experience had been posted on Facebook that people could follow part of my journey. While I was going through the journey in the gallery, people had to send a friend request to A Bridge Too Far (performance at Exodus) to read the posts. From 19 May (after finishing my stay) onward all the posts from the experiment became public. (Go to the FB account)

Between 22-27 December 2016 A Bridge Too Far was presented at Tenri Japanisch-Deutsche Kulturwerkstatt in Cologne.
As of 27 December, all the posts from the experiment are public.

Between 04-14 December 2017 A Bridge Too Far was presented at B-Galleria in Turku.
As of 14 December, all the posts from the experiment are public.   

Between 22-28 June 2019 A Bridge Too Far (Rebuilt) was presented at Vrij Paleis in Amsterdam. You need to be a FB friend to read the post from this experiment. 

concept / performance / video :  Tashi Iwaoka