About ‘Refugee Republic‘, why did you make a parody of Rolls Royce’s logo mark?

You may understand it as a parody. Maybe that’s OK but it was not intended as a parody. It is just a combination of two elements you don’t expect to see together normally. You think of refugees, you might think, hungry people, crowded four-wheel drive trucks, or something. And with Rolls Royce, you may think of something sophisticated, rich, luxurious – no refugees hundreds of miles from here…

Refugee Republic Installation. Tokyo, 1996.

So I wanted to bring that together, because our expectation, our image of refugees is kind of incorrect. I wanted to change that. I don’t want people to associate the same thing again… and I don’t want to repeat the same story again and again. Refugees, camps, hungry, dirty, and whatever. That’s not really the story. that’s the stereotype. I thought it was interesting to combine refugees with a luxury symbol… since, after all, most of the refugee nations became really successful by comparison… Australia, the US, Israel etc… well, anyway that was many many years ago. Initially I was just playing around with Photoshop software and a new computer that I just bought… it had just been released and I was excited to use it in some way. So that was my first “digital art work”.

In Japan, we also hear the news about Kosovo or Albania refugees on TV or news papers. But I feel we Japanese think that it was the story happened in very very far countries. Your installation of “Refugee Republic” was shown in Japan 1996, how was the audience’s reaction? Is there any differences from other countries like Europe, America?

Yeah, very different. Actually in Europe, especially when I show the project in Germany, some people think it is tasteless. Obviously they are stuck in an ideological dead-end and know nothing about real refugees. They think the best you can do for refugees is to express your pity. But these people are clueless – this is not what they need. They don’t even need canned food rations, or your old shoes. There are more constructive ways of dealing with it.

In America, there is a very different attitude. Americans understand that they are essentially a nation of refugees. There is a clear understanding that the solution cannot consist of blaming either the system nor in relegating the responsibility to a government agency. Commercial values have to be taken into consideration. I do not really have to explain my reasoning too much. Americans don’t seem to have a problem with a mercantile approach. They kind of pat me on the back…

In Japan, I found many people who surprised me, saying “Ah this is very interesting. I’m a refugee too.” I said “You look like a Japanese how can you be a refugee – we are in your home country here. What’s the story?” And they would respond, “Yeah but you know I am a refugee in this society. As an individual I’m a refugee from the society I can’t fit in and have to hide. I am in a sort of internal secret emigration.” That was a very surprising way of seeing yourself having this state of mind of being refugee, not being able to identify. So they think of it as a kind of social metaphor. To me that was very shocking and astonishing… I heard that several times.

Other people think this is just a way of expressing that “On the internet, everybody is refugee because we are crossing borders”. That’s a really big misunderstanding. This is not about people crossing borders by using the internet and then finding themselves looking at the Russian web sites which they cannot read. So they see a symbolism in the project which only art critics are hoping for… or people who just don’t get it that something that started in the realm of art may also be aimed at the real world… That is just so ridiculous.

I suppose this project keeps growing and progressing. Is the project going exactly to where you aimed? And what is your goal with this project?

My first goal was to make refugees more popular in a good way and to encourage people to look at refugees in more detail. And not just with pity. I also wanted to encourage refugees to think about what they are.

Look at refugees beyond the obvious tragedy and maybe you see a way to make the experiences and even the tragedy work for you. Refugees need a lot of encouragement. A lot of refugees have a kind of broken spirit. That needs to be addressed and fixed if possible so they can act again. If there is something I’ve learned from visiting refugee camps, it is their biggest problem was their “broken spirit” and boredom. You’ll be surprised, it’s not that the people don’t have enough to eat. It’s not that they are ill and sick. Normally after a very short time, these concerns have been addressed by the Red Cross or UNHCR, and many other organizations which all do an excellent job at taking care of the initial issues of hunger and providing shelter.

But then the question is what to do next. That is a big problem. The refugees end up being stuck in the camps… and they become disconnected form their culture and they can no longer do business either. On average they spend 5 years in a camp. That is the issue that nobody quite thinks about and feels responsible for.

Initially I did not think about connecting the internet and this project. Then over the years, I realized maybe there is potential for refugees to learn about other refugees. If you really use the internet to connect refugees with each other, maybe there is a way of an organization which goes beyond territory. Maybe it can really happen giving the technological progress.

All this internet technology is useful for you and me but we already, I mean, we have a lot of things and ways to communicate and travel etc. But refugees are very limited in every way. They are limited where they live, they cannot travel , they cannot communicate with people outside and so on. So these technologies can really make a difference in their lives. In terms of communications, in terms of being in touch with other people, in terms of learning. Refugees suffer most from all kinds of borders – and they would benefit most from the borderlessness of the internet.