Martyna MILLER

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Martyna MILLER

Participating Project	International Creator Residency Program
Activity Based	Poland
City	Tokyo
Period	2020.1 - 2020.3

Purpose of the residency

Purpose of my stay was appointed by a project I started to work on in Stettin, Poland. 40 koi carps in 2012 were brought to this city and after 4 years they dissapeared. Action convention is confronted with my anthropological research around the carp origin and its cultural constructs. Deeper insight led me to further dealing not only with carp myth, but also notions like rootedness, externals, distinction, manipulation.
During my stay I want to confront polish and japanese implications on carp and topics they raise in performative video essay combined with the footage I collected in Europe.

Plan during the residency

・sharing polish footage in order to get feedback and find my starting point starting the research on history of Koi carp and working on a script
・shooting material in Japan including conversations, visits at fish farms and others found during the research
・editing material and creating narration for my “Memory Carp” film essay
・Finalising the project and preparing for open studios in March
・sharing my work and experiences with TOKAS Residency recipients

Activities during the residency

During residency I developed Memory Carp project. I started with continuation of comparatory research around koi and carp, that led me to important cultural connotations. In this time I found koi carp farm in Matsusaka, where I could shoot the most important performances for my film. I travelled there twice, cooperating with Yoshinao Taniguchi on understanding the context of Japanese koi and shooting my material. I cooperated with Makoto Yoshida, researcher from National Institute for Environmental Studies Lake Biwa, thanks to who I received special recordings shot from the perspective of indigenous japanese wild carp. I have undertaken research in public space, where I collected several elements of public space that related to my research made on carp still in Poland ad incorporated them into my selected material. I also performed in public space of Tokyo. After coming back from my second trip in Matsusaka, I dedicated all my time to editing and music composing to enclose my story in watchable / installative form.

Overview of the residency

I collected many satisfactory video materials and managed to create a 20 minutes long visual story in form of a uncanny fairy tale, with music and editing solutions to be just proper up in more detailed postproduction. I am glad I managed to finish big part of my project within residency. I think I am happy with my achievements. Of course, not everything was possible during 3 months, there are still many things I would like to develop deeper, but I am satisfied with what I managed to do. I like the achieved result and I plan to work on it before exhibition in August. Becauase of COVID-19 pandemic at the moment it is hard to plan showings of the work. I have shared it at the University with my students, the film was invited to exhibition titled Auster Blue/ Tired Pink, Watering Exhibitions, Galleries and Museum (The Afterflow of the Great Quarantinne part) next year, it will be also probably screened at Malta Festival in Poznań in program “Water is you”. At the end of the year it will be shown in group exhibition in independent space DOMIE in Poznań, together with works from Athens and Dublin. I want to work now on combining two parts based on research in Poland and Japan, searching for new qualities in my material. I also continue my project Intimacy of Waters, plan to develop it into Intimacy of the Sea and Ocean to Ocean project – Memory Carp was a beginning of a bigger series, that I am very happy about.

Creator Information