simon fujiwara

Britsh-japanese artist Simon Fujiwara lives and works in Berlin and London. In his works he continuously re-constructs his own identity by weaving his personal and family biographies into the larger scheme of history, through architectural installations, erotic fiction writing and lecture-performances. From expeditions in Africa to the underground world of sex in 70’s Spain, the personal experiences presented in Fujiwara’s lectures are used to explore a range of subjects from ethnology and eroticism to architecture and ancestry. The Museum of Incest (2008–ongoing) is Fujiwara’s architectural project - a fictive institution that explores the erotic origins of early man whilst proposing family sexuality as a subject for a visitor attraction. Welcome to the Hotel Munber (2007–ongoing), meanwhile, springs from Fujiwara’s re-imagining of his parents’ life running a hotel in Catalunya during the 1970s. Set under the suppression enforced by the Franco dictatorship, Fujiwara’s re-tells their story as a series of gay erotic tales – an attempt to construct a history erased by censorship. Franco’s missing testicle, early mass-tourism and the erotic uses of Spanish architecture all play their part in a subversive world where history and fiction merge.