Appeartus is a series of kobayashi’s artistic practices with self-made lip-projection apparatuses and moving images. In Appeartus, kobayashi has experimented with his own method, Poetry Riding; the act of composing poetry through cycling on self-made bicycle apparatuses. This work, Appeartus #1, focuses on the local bicycle shop called “XE ĐẠP TRỢ LỰC OSAKA GIÁ RẺ” in Daikokucho, Osaka. Through interviews and poetry riding along the banks of the Yamato River, kobayashi recorded words of personal migration. With pieces of their nuances and vowels, kobayashi interweaves a poetry on migration.
When you take off at Daikokucho station, you can see Vietnamese signboards everywhere. Like in a supermarket or cafe, the signboards are written with both Vietnamese and Japanese. Taking a walk from there, you could find a bicycle shop called “XE ĐẠP TRỢ LỰC OSAKA GIÁ RẺ”. This word is directly translated as “Cheap Electric Assisted Bicycle Osaka”. The shop has been run by the Vietnamese owner, Nguyễn-san. Nguyễn moved to Osaka from Hải Dương, Northern Vietnam in 2017 and opened this shop with his friends three years later in 2020. He said, “The Vietnamese shops have largely increased from 5 years ago here”, and “Here is the place where the Vietnamese stay temporarily”. I asked about Nguyễn’s migration at the bicycle shop and along the riverside of the Yamato River. Like that, our tongues have arisen as poetry.
In their perspectives, they experience peculiar instability*, conflicting two different attributes; the inner attributes such as the relationship between homecountry, and the outer attributes such as Japan’s intolerant sociality towards migrants. How are these instabilities reflected in their words? And most significantly, how can they – we digest these personal, fluctuated, fragmented pieces of words?
* Ikuo K. (2001). Transbordering families: The lifeworld in Vietnamese residents in Japan. Akashi Shoten. 230.
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