Fourth Friday: Naoki Nakatani, Mitsu Salmon & Hiroshi Mehata

AIRMW and Hairpin Arts Center presents the Fourth Friday series with a three-part evening of performance artists and electronic music. The first set will be a performance by Naoki Nakatani with guest Logan Griffin Beck, followed by a solo performance by Mitsu Salmon. Hiroshi Mehata closes the evening with an electronics set using the sound material gathered from the Tokachi Region.

Naoki Nakatani is a performance artist from Japan, whose work emphasizes the system of coexistence, both in social and micro scale. Each fragment of the world compromises and contradicts with one another. They make such shifts (performance) to stay together. Interpreting performance as a force, he facilitates systematic events that draw attention to our never ending participation in the world.

Mitsu Salmon creates performance and visual works that fuse multiple disciplines. She was born in Los Angeles to a Japanese mother and American father. Creating in differing media—translating one medium to another—is connected to the translation of differing cultures and languages. Her work draws from familial and personal narratives and then abstracts, expands, and contradicts them. Her current projects investigate familial histories, nature, imperialism, and archives. Salmon received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2014, and her undergrad degree from NYU.  She has participated in artist residencies at Taipei Artist Village (Taiwan), Incheon Art Platform (Korea), Oxbow (MI), Guildhall (NY) and PAM (LA) as well as locally at Links Hall, High Concept Lab, HATCH, and the Chicago Cultural Center. She has performed solo work at places such as Performance Space 122, Dance Theater Workshop, and Highways Performance Space. She has received the Midwest Nexus Touring Grant, Chicago Dancemaker’s Lab Grant, and DCASE IAP.

Hiroshi Mehata is a Noise/Experimental Music artist who has also been creating graphic artworks based on his own music in Tokyo, Japan. His work explores metaphysical concepts of noum, kami, and kotodama as it relates to the history and spirituality of Japanese culture. Since 2011 Mehata has been working under the name “Mehata Sentimental Legend” and released the album “Noum Zeccyou” under Germany’s netlabel Mind Plug Records. Since then he has continued doing musical collaborations with foreign artists and musicians.