A Bear Going to Meet Bears in the Zoo

2010 Performance Video 26’52min

Niwa dressed as a bear walks upon all fours from Ueno station to Ueno Zoo, a popular leisure spot, going to visit the bears in captivity. His artifice is obvious, but his action provokes various responses from people whom he meets on the way. However, as he reaches the zoo, security guards gather and finally there is an altercation between the bear and these wardens. Through creating this fiction of a bear going to meet bears and drawing a juxtaposition between the reaction of ordinary people and the regulated zoo Niwa queries the very state of increasingly controlled public space.

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