Many of the guests in cherry custard come into mixing via non-traditional routes (filmmaking, curation, writing, performance, poetry, and so on), so it only felt right to cast a spotlight over those who have inspired host christeeeene’s experimental artistic practice so far. Not only those that use mixes within their visual practice, but those who use words to inform their mixing. The reader, the writer, the artist, the activist, the poet and performer; they’re all here and they’re all cherries.

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In 1957, Mieko Shiomi began studying musicology at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. Interested in avant-garde music, she founded the “Group Ongaku” with her classmates in 1960, which explored new forms and improvised performances. In 1961, they had a debut concert, and also participated in a concert of Toshi Ichiyanagi. Mieko Shiomi deepened her exploration of spatial-temporal music in relation to everyday objects. In 1963, she began to write action poems, and created Endless Box, a multiple composed of 34 boxes in foldable paper of differ sizes, which she sent ­– on the advice of Nam June Paik – to Maciunas, thus making her entrance into the Fluxus movement. During her stay in New York in 1964 and 65, she started the series of Spatial Poem. After coming back to Japan in 1965, she developed events into more complex performance works. In 1969, she organized “Intermedia Art Festival” with “Group Ongaku” members, and in 1976, she published a book of Spatial Poem series.

Since 1990, she has taken part in numerous Fluxus projects across Europe, USA and Japan. In 1994, she organized “Fluxus Media Opera” with a computer musician and 30 performers, also inviting foreign Fluxus members by international telephone. In 1996, she was nominated for the “Women Composers of the World” section at Tokyo Summer. In 2001, she organized “Fluxus Trial “at The National Museum of Art in Osaka, and in 2013 had a retrospective “Mieko Shiomi and Fluxus” there. For over 60 years, Mieko Shiomi kept working in various genres such as poetry, music, performances, visual arts or collaborative works. Since 10 years ago, she has given lectures at Kyoto City University of Arts as a Distinguished Visiting Scholar. She is still actively working on numerous projects in Osaka.

Photo credit: Robby Müller, Opium poppy, La Palma, 1980s. Polaroid 600. © Robby Müller Archive, Courtesy Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam