What are looks ? And how do they make people notice each other, recognise each other, even fall in love ? In a combination of light and shadow, the Japanese visual artist and performer Naoko Tanaka reveals new dimensions of the reality that surrounds us. Her powerful imaginary shadow world gradually invades the whole space, washes ashore, slips away, arises, disappears. Die Schweinwerferin turns subjective perception inside out.

Armed with a torch Naoko Tanaka sets out on a fictitious journey to her inner self. With simple means she creates fascinating images – of suppressed memories, of a forest that grows rank under a kitchen table.

Naoko Tanaka studied visual arts in Tokyo and in 1999 she went to the Art academy of Düsseldorf. Ever since she has been creating performances and installations in which choreography and visual art are interwoven. Die Schweinwerferin is her first solo. She made the performance in 2011 and has scored success with it all over Europe. It is the first part of what is to be a shadow trilogy.