Tabaimo

the long version

Ayako Tabata, nicknamed Tabaimo - meaning "Tabata's little sister" - is famous in the Japanese contemporary art scene. In 2001, she was the youngest artist invited to participate in the Yokohama Trienniale. Her style - animated films that combine drawings evoking the "handmade" nature of traditional Japanese wood prints with sophisticated computer technology - provides a brutally honest glimpse into Japanese city life through dreamlike images. This book explores three video installations which reveal the violence of ordinary situations in an apparently gentle manner, playing on the transition between the normal and the abnormal, imperceptibly shifting from scenes of everyday life to deeply enigmatic, fascinating, and often disturbing situations.