When I exhibit sound sculptures in Europe, I get asked about the influence of the Futurists on my work. The alliance between Fascist Italian, Nazi Germany, and the Empire of Japan flashed through my mind. I answered that I am a Futurist by way of America, as a Japanese person born in the second half of the twentieth century.

From Muneteru Ujino, Plywood City Stories 1 (2017)

The basis of Chiba City’s modernization was the large-scale military facilities centered on the Imperial Japanese Army’s Railways and Shipping Section, which earned it the sobriquet of “Military City Chiba” in the early twentieth century. Located in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area and with a contemporary urban culture, Chiba started off as a military city in the modern era and then reached completion in the latter half of the twentieth century. The exhibition venue is a vacant two-story house in the center of the city. With its weathered steel frame and mortar and Japanese-style sliding doors, this building conjures up a rich space where the pain and pleasure of the twentieth century, war and peace, and past and present emerge in manifold ways.

Main Exhibits

Homy and the Rotators, 2023

Ujino launched this experimental project in an attempt to synthesize two projects from different periods of his career: The Rotators, his DIY rhythm machine ongoing since the early 2000s that repurposes examples of twentieth-century products; and the more recent narrative-based video works he started making in 2017. To the beat of a sound sculpture assembled from consumer technology, Ujino’s one-hundred-year-old mother describes memories of gyoza dumplings, her favorite meal in her native Manchuria.

Refurbished Tansu Robo, 2025

Ujino’s Tansu Robo, which he calls a portrait of the twentieth-century Japanese, was originally part of a 2010 installation called The Ballad of Extended Backyard. It is here revitalized and reactivated for 2025 as a sound sculpture, Refurbished Tansu Robo, using materials procured locally and within a project to repair and restore modernity.

Lost Frontier – Route Home, 2025First exhibited in 2023, Lost Frontier is a video work that deals with the personal experiences of Ujino’s Manchurian-born mother as a member of a migrant family. One of the key aspects of this is the railway line built in Manchuria and the Korean Peninsula by the predecessor of the Imperial Japanese Army Railways and Shipping Section, which was based in Chiba. The new version of the work focuses on railways, traveling from present-day Chiba to the lost frontier of Manchuria that appears in the first film, an underdeveloped region and borderland that used to exist during the imperial era.

Event Overview

• Dates: September 19 (Fri) – November 24 (Mon, substitute holiday), 2025
• Opening times: 10:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.
• Closed Wednesdays
• Venue: Former clinic (in front of Chiba City Museum of Art)（2-1-17 Honcho, Chuo-ku, Chiba City, Chiba Prefecture）
  ［No parking/No EV charging］
• Free admission

Other Events

• Talk: Ujino, House of Homy and the Rotators
  September 20（Sat）, 2025, 2–4 p.m. (first 20 people)
• Workshop: Play with Tansu Robo Open Rehearsal
  October 25（Sat）, 2025, 2–4 p.m. (first 8 people)
• Music Performance: Play with Tansu Robo
  November 22（Sat）, 2025, 2–4 p.m. (first 8 people)
• Details about the events will be announced on the Chiba City Arts Triennale 2025 website.

Visitor Guide (Tsukurun Niwa ~ Venue)

This is a guide video from Tsukurun Niwa (the venue for Char Char Agency’s “Mobile Veranda”). It’s about a 10-minute walk.

Heatstroke Prevention Measures

Please take measures to prevent heatstroke by staying hydrated and wearing a hat, etc., according to the environment. If you feel unwell, please notify a nearby staff member.

Photography and Video Recording

Photography and video recording will be conducted on the day for promotional and record-keeping purposes. Media outlets may also conduct interviews and filming. Photographs and videos taken may be published on the Chiba International Art Festival website, social media, brochures, and other promotional materials, as well as on television, magazines, and other media. We kindly ask for your understanding in advance.