SADATAKA AMMI

“I met” is the first solo exhibition by Sadataka Ammi (b.1987 Kanagawa, Japan) in Berlin.
The exhibition presents 191 portraits of digital paintings that the artist has been creating during the last four
and a half years, printed on two long pieces of fabric material. The 10.5m wide and 1.58m long fabric print is
a montage of all the people and is composed of a long, horizontal, integrated work. The other print, 13.27 m
wide and 1.4 m long, contains 51 full-body portraits, evenly spaced from left to right in chronological order.
Both prints show the people the artist met from the past to the present and trace the evolution of his artistic
expression. These participants are mainly people Ammi met in his daily life in Berlin.
 

In September 2018, Ammi moved to Berlin and began his project "1000-Sen" on 10 February 2019.

The project is based on one simple rule: "Draw people I met."
Berlin is home to many immigrants and refugees who live together with those who were born and raised
there. Their specific cultures do not merge with the German culture but coexist as a mosaic of cultures, each
with its own outline and interactive relationship. It is this particular situation that attracted him to Berlin.
Ammi decided that this environment is the best place to start this journey.
 

Ammi considers "encounter" as the most important practice in this project. The repetition of encounters and
partings that we experience over and over again in our interactions with people raises fundamental human
questions about life and death. There are supposed to be 8 billion people living in the world. However, we
have no way of knowing for sure if they really exist, and we receive this information tentatively. It is only
when they meet each other, or when a subsequent reunion is possible, that we can definitively recognize that
a person is alive. The moment we separate from each other, we become as ambiguous and ambivalent as
Schrodinger's cat. Ammi contemplates how we humans manage our desires at the most basic level through
this practice.
 

One of the reasons Ammi chose to exhibit at HOŠEK CONTEMPORARY is that the unique shape of the ship is
suitable for displaying his works. The continuous horizontal spread of the work evokes certain images, such
as the ancient Japanese emaki (picture scrolls) and the Berlin Wall. Portraits created in digital media are
made up of component square pixels. As the work grows, they connect with each other to form a rectangle,
which then transforms into a line. Imaginatively, the line continues to expand along the circumference of the
earth, eventually circling back to its original location to form a circle. Ammi's aim is to continue drawing this
line. There is almost no interaction between the people depicted in the project, with a few exceptions.
However, through this project, they are able to identify with each other as beings in the same boat. This is a
very weak connection, not a strong connection that exists between family and friends. Apart from this, they
have developed their own relationships, cultivated by their individual experiences. By connecting these
personal networks to the project, Ammi attempts to connect with people on the other side of the world.
 

"This project will forever be in an unfinished state. As long as I do not stop drawing. Who would you draw?