Interview Akina Yoshitake López

Akina Yoshitake López interviewed by Tuana Inhan during the Graduation Show 2022 at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague (KABK).

Whistle Whistle: Resonate Until Tongue

Graduation project 2021-2022 by Akina Yoshitake López
Multimedia installation

Departing from Akina’s relation to the Uchinaaguchi language, from Okinawa in Japan, the project focuses on a possible negotiation between presence and intelligibility of languages. It is a three-part installation contemplating the opacity of the language Akina can not speak through imagined cross-sections on a photograph using the same language as method. It draws from the idea that words are somehow able to contour things. What kind of spaces could be opened? The lack of linguistic articulation becomes visible as the unsettling power of making rooms, but still some traces remain, trembling and waiting fora word.

The project is contextualised within the diasporic flows of families who migrated from Okinawa to Brazil pre-WWI.

Uchinaaguchi and a photograph taken at a shoreline in Okinawa are a study case from which Yoshitake Lopez can start, as her interest is in their relation with other languages and imaginaries. Through a collection of videos, audio, and images, she looks for resonance with whispers and other unsorted phonemes that linger in one’s ears.