Hiraki Sawa

Hiraki Sawa
Japanese, b. Ishikawa, 1977
Dwelling
2003
Single-channel video; black and white; sound; 9:20 min.
Joseph H. Hirshhorn Purchase Fund, 2006 (06.2)

In Dwelling, a fleet of miniature airplanes soars through a small apartment, periodically taking off and landing on a kitchen table, a bed, and a washing machine. Hiraki Sawa created the film while in graduate school, superimposing computer-animated aircraft over footage of his own domestic space and adding a spare soundtrack of soft engine noises. Whereas airplanes promise escapes to far-off destinations, here they are confined to a cramped interior, their random flight paths instead suggesting psychological voyages, as when we suddenly recall a web of memories while dozing off at home.