The Silent Passenger

A hotel room. The sheets are turned back. There is no noise from the shower to make the camera move. Instead there is movement from the sheets themselves. Slowly, one by one, tiny creatures crawl out from beneath. More and more and more of them. Step by step, hermit crabs invade the room. The lamp, the corner, everything is explored. Butterflies hang inside a car's windscreen.
The Silent Passenger was filmed on the island of Okinawa in southern Japan. The artist and filmmaker took various native animals out of their natural habitat and placed them in an artificial space, such as a hotel room or a car. The hermit crabs navigate their new landscape but are alien to it and will remain so. For the man in the mirror - the artist - the animals are the other. But for the animals the artist is the other. Their common space is utopia.