The Italian Cultural Institute in Tokyo, in association with the Fondazione Palazzo Magnani and the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice presents “L’isola” (the island) the last images, sounds and sparks of a disappearing community; the project by Anush Hamzehian and Vittorio Mortarotti is set in the Yonaguni island, a small piece of land far from everything and battered by the strongest currents of the Pacific Ocean. One thousand people live on the island, only a few of whom still speak dunan, the local language which was recently included on the list of Severely Endangered Languages. As it will no longer exist in a few decades, its fate is sealed, destined to be forgotten, and with it, the world of Yonaguni itself. Soon, there will be no more funeral rites during which bodies are buried in huge womb-shaped graves; the yuta will go too, priestesses who communicate with ancestral spirits.
In order to preserve the memory of all of this, Anush Hamzehian and Vittorio Mortarotti created a multi-channel audio-video installation and sound work, available for viewing until 6 May.
The sound work includes a reading, the only to date, of the 30000 headwords that make up the dunan by Tagami san, one of the last people to speak this language. It was recorded at his house in Sonai (Yonaguni) over a number of different sessions between 2018 and 2020. A documentary called Yonaguni was also made of the study periods spent on the island by Anush Hamzehian and Vittorio Mortarotti, and which the Italian Cultural Institute proposes as part of the initiative.
