Welcome to the Umeyama Time Teleportation Museum (UTTM)!

​

The protagonist of my fictional museum, Umeyama Time Teleportation Museum (UTTM), is a man, Shoei Umeyama, who time travels back and forth between the closed-door policy Japan of 170 years ago and various locations of the 21st century world. By borrowing his perspective, I investigate a sort of modern-day Ukiyo (floating transient world) and challenge the subjective nature of artwork. I simultaneously admire and question the power of written language in art, especially in museum labels. These writings often control the viewers’ perception by providing knowledge and highlighting what to see, while physically creating a distinctive diptych situation, or in some cases even a triptych or more, by juxtaposing the museum label(s) with the artwork. In this body of work, I use ink drawings of a traditional style as the time traveler’s creation. On a separate sheet of paper, with graphite, I hand draw, not write, an image of the fictional museum wall that includes museum labels, creating a diptych with Umeyama’s work. (2024)

​