Momoko Seto

                                  
Michel Soskine Inc. has the pleasure of presenting, for the first time in Madrid, an exhibition by Franco-Japanese artist Momoko Seto (Tokyo 1980), with a selection of three photographs and two videos; one of them a 5mts projection, the other a virtual reality experience. Seto currently lives and works in Paris, France.

Momoko Seto’s artistic activity is linked to a firm ecological activism. Climate change and its consequences are implicit in her work, which somehow collapses and mutates as well as the worst contemporary predictions. Coincidentally, the COP25 (United Nations Conference on Climate Change) took a last-minute turn and is meeting in Madrid as the Momoko Seto exhibition is taking place. The search for solutions is a top priority in the world’s agenda while many artists, one of them Seto, are calling a time for action. 

 ´From ∑ to ∞ = PLANET M´ is the title chosen by Seto for the exhibition that will open on Thursday November 21st until Saturday January 18. PLANET ∞ is a dystopian tale set in an apocalyptic scene where human beings have become extinct and only fungi and mold grow amid gigantic dried insect bodies. In the film, Earth is plagued by the effects of climate change and Seto’s world becomes populated by strange marine creatures. This short film immerses the viewer into a timeless, multi-spatial existence that becomes almost a prophetic experience that wakes ecological awareness.

By showing melting ice, the appearance of different forms of life, and the extinction of species in PLANET∑, Momoko Seto picks up the story of a distorted world, a poetic metaphor of our own evolution and the probability of its end due to climate change. The artist uses new audiovisual technological advances in order to conceive new gravitational laws and to juxtapose temporalities to vertigo. PLANET ∑, received the Audi Short Film Award at the 65th Berlinale a prize that distinguishes a work of “high artistic signature”, and has been integrated to Mori Art Tokyo Museum´s collection in 2017.

Seto has made a number of short films and documentaries which have been presented and acclaimed at several festivals worldwide. Her latest film PLANET ∞, co-produced by ARTE and distributed by MK2films, is an organic tale in Virtual Reality that has obtained many distinguished awards, more than 10, including the “Best VR” award.

 
After spending her childhood in Tokyo, she traveled to France to obtain her art degree at the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Marseille and then at the Le Fresnoy National Studio of Contemporary Art. At the same time, she was working as a film director at the CNRS (National Centre of Scientific Research) in Paris, and still is.  

By pushing the technological, aesthetic, and critical potential of the new digital realm and embracing “new media”, Seto creates a digital reality that challenges the way we perceive the constraints and limitations of the physical world while building a new narrative based on current ecological issues.