IN DEPTH

HAO JINGBAN

When silent motion pictures were first introduced to mass audiences in Japan in the late 19th century, the task of a benshi was to preface the contents of a film and narrate the plot during the presentation. It was a paradoxical position that inevitably required benshi to lend their own readings to what was happening on the silver screen, though the conventions of the art form also emphasized “faithfulness” to the movies.

Preoccupied with how we use language to fill in effaced and contested histories—particularly that of Sino-Japanese relations, which remain volatile today—and the possibilities of stripping away the intended messages of an image, Beijing-based Hao Jingban invited one of the few contemporary practitioners of the tradition, Ichiro Kataoka, to collaborate with her. Hao edited a selection of propaganda films produced by the (2018) and was displayed in the same corner of the gallery where it was recorded.