Yoshi Nakamura - the various rains converge on the sea
About the Artist
Hailing from Japan, Yoshi Nakamura received his first cochlear implant in 2012, drastically and permanently changing the way he related to sound, color, and language.
Nakamura has worked in sculpture, painting, installation, and sound art in Baltimore and Cincinnati since graduating from Maryland Institute College of Art, Mount Royal School of Art (MFA 2020) and Tokyo University of the Arts in Japanese painting (PhD 2015).
The various rains converge on the sea
In this project, Nakamura posed a question to the viewer: can we communicate through sound and vibration? To answer, he devised a sensory exploration and collaboration between hearing and hearing-impaired people, using four sound instruments, wires, musical scores, and masks for the musicians.
The name of the exhibition, “The various rains converge on the sea,” is a beautiful metaphor for the artist’s intentions: the ‘various rains’ implies the diversity that exists within communication, while ‘the sea’ is the convergence, the unification of communication shared between disabled and non-disabled people. His hope was that throughout this interactive exhibition, visitors would harmonize in unexpected ways.
The Performance
Due to Covid-19 restrictions, Nakamura’s intended live performance did not occur. However, he collected a few university students to assist in testing his musical exploration.
The experience was unusual; making music from stone and wires seemed as discordant an idea as the resulting cacophony of bangs, twangs, and tings that we were making. But an odd harmony began to emerge after a few minutes, as we began to listen as much to the instrumental clanging of the other musicians as we were our own. There was never any rhythm, but rather an attempt at backing vocals, one after another, the song changing minute by minute as we switched places and chose new instruments. It was never a perfect song, but there was an acknowledgment of mutual discretion, and a balance of submission to one another as one person took the lead and subsequently allowing it to pass into the next person’s hands.