YOSHUA OKÓN

Beneath an expansive green forest, is a 55 million metric ton mass of industrial and household waste disposed by the city of Tokyo since 1977. The shoot location, "Outer Central Breakwater Reclamation Area No. 2”, is a 4-square-kilometer island segment of an ongoing landfill. It is currently in the process of “green development”, adding a 50-cm surface layer of soil and vegetation on top of a 30-meter-deep strata of waste. Wreaking with an intense rotten smell from adjacent areas, the site is monitored 24 hours a day for fire hazards, due to the highly ignitable methane gas exhumed from underground. Wild vegetation is there to detoxify the ground, preparing itself for future use and spurring “speculation” in Tokyo’s contested property market. Despite the promises of “green economy” which, based on intelligent technology, asserts sustainable GDP growth without degrading planetary environments, the scale of our material consumption and natural resource depredation is beyond control.

To portray a contextual analysis of this artificial island, Okón deploys the cinematic language of a nature documentary, which commodifies and aestheticises views of nature and wildlife. Pointing at supposedly “green policies” which promote both consumption and illusion of sustainable production, Shita (Japanese word for “under”) ironically creates a green forest spectacle, and in doing so, alludes to darkness beneath the blanket of seemingly efficient management of waste. Commercial products, now crushed and dumped, represent the accumulation of time workers from the world over have spent, as the global economy relocates factories of cheap labour. Buried in the landfill devoid of any market value, these products continue to decompose, only to help form a new land for further economic speculation. While prompting adaptive behaviors to ecological marketing and internalizing its root causes within the consciousness of the consumer, the market mechanism continues to fuel overproduction, with exacerbating collusion between the government and the private sector. The green forest covering up the foul underneath signifies this neoliberal strategy, in which the most essential contradiction of the market economy is kept beneath the layers of media, building a false impression upon a visually seductive surface.

Disguised as ore minerals that contain metal and other tradable elements, the series of sculptures included in this work are made of “molten slag”. This toxic material is made from incinerated ashes of waste and sewage sludge processed above 1300 Celsius degrees, and used as a landfill material in Tokyo Bay.