Shinpei Takeda

In Shinpei Takeda’s words: “When we leave our land, we leave with a hope of returning there with an accolade, an accomplishment, or something else that was not possible at our place of origin, and of being recognized for this great journey. But in reality, deep inside ourselves, we are not returning because of triumph. We just want to come back and feel that we belong to somebody, someplace, something. All we have is our tangled-up memories forcefully squeezed into our well-travelled suitcases, in the hope that this place will heal us and help us untangle and organize our memories”.

Using the crates designed to carry the Imago Mundi artworks (literally the luggage), Takeda has created a gate structure marking this great return “to where we belong.” Made from a canvas (made in Europe), marked with Chinese ink (from Japan) and threads (from Mexico), the hybrid materials are products of Takeda’s upbringing and his continuously nomadic life between these three cultural spheres. Literally a cover for the travelling boxes, the work symbolizes the scratched surface of our skin, full of complex memories not yet completely untangled. By stepping through this monumental structure, visitors are given the opportunity to confront and begin to untangle their own complex webs of memories and desires.

Shinpei Takeda (1978) is an artist and filmmaker born in Osaka, Japan, based between Tijuana, Mexico and Dusseldorf, Germany. Since childhood he has lived a nomadic life in various cities in Europe, the US, and Japan, developing a hybrid desire for both wanting and not wanting to belong. His works have been shown in Centro Cultural Tijuana (Mexico), 2010, Kyoto Art Center (Japan), 2012; Nagasaki Art Museum (Japan), 2015; Kunstpalast Dusseldorf (Germany) 2018; Museo de la Cancillería, Mexico City, 2018; and the Contemporary Museum of Art Queretaro (Mexico), 2019.