Coffee, But Not Really Coffee - Mayumi Nakazaki x Monali Meher

Coffee, But Not Really Coffee is a participatory event that uses personal coffee rituals as a gentle way to explore inclusivity, individuality, and cultural encounter. Instead of one “correct” coffee, everyone is invited to prepare their version whatever “coffee” means to them.

Why coffee?

Coffee can be comfort, routine, status, survival, heritage, or simply a way to pause. In many cultures, preparation is communal, an invitation to sit, share time, and witness one another. Here, coffee becomes a tool to meet the “other”: another person, another background, another way of living. To use the ordinary act of making a drink to create an intimate, contemporary space for exchange; inviting participants to slow down, encounter one another, and consider how everyday rituals shape belonging.

Coffee, But Not Really Coffee revisits Mayumi Nakazaki x Monali Meher’s 2004 project titled Tea Ceremony, where neighbors from Asylum Seeker’s Center, Bos en Lommer Amsterdam were invited for tea. Participants, strangers from different nationalities, shared how tea or coffee is served in their home countries. The experience wasn’t only to drink together, but to practice hospitality through giving and receiving. ‘By paying attention to everyone’s tea, we became more aware of our own histories and assumptions’.

More than 20 years later, these questions feel more urgent than ever to Mayumi Nakazaki x Monali Meher: what can art do amid today’s social challenges, and how do we live inside the tension between belonging and being ourselves?

Coffee, But Not Really Coffee – Mayumi Nakazaki x Monali Meher

Arcade City (work in progress)

All female, single take feature film project.

Script & Direction

Post production 2026

more info

Mapping

2024 single video total duration 18 min. excerpt video

Creating a map of Tinian Island as an activity, three women from different parts of the world discuss moving and change while touching the subjects of war, home and identity. Combined with the Internet accessible pictures and text-to-speech narration, this investigative work attempts to remember past and ongoing conflicts and contemplate possible ways of our coexistence as beings together with other humans, nature, and technology.

Crossing

2022 Total duration 1:00 min. Single screening

In the midst of the Covid-19 Pandemic. Although mask-wearing has never been legally enforced in Japan, almost all the pedestrians wear face masks and cross the world’s busiest intersection at Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo.

photo: 60 seconds Festival 2022 Life Perfect - Location at Christianshavns kanal /Inderhavnsbroen, Copenhagen

On Our Island

2023 Total duration 15min. 4K Single channel

Based on the interview of an ex-soldier and his episodic memory, the film explores synchronicity of past and present against the backdrop of Tokyo cityscape. Mr.Nishigano was sent to defend Tinian Island in the Pacific in 1944; the launching point for the atomic bombings during World War II. Having had very little information about the enemy and subsequently abandoned by the headquarters, his battle was mainly against hunger. After 70 years of being quiet about his encounters on the island, Mr.Nishigano breaks silence and starts to talk about his personal experiences.

Supported by Mondriaan Fonds NL

How I met Mr.Nishigano →https://www.instagram.com/p/CpC3knEshGM/

In My Drawer

2020 Total Duration 04:50 single channel

During the Covid 19 lockdown, I found an object in my chest of drawers which once belonged to my grandmother. It made me feel somewhat uncanny, far away from home and everything I see now from the window appears to be ever more foreign.

*Awarded best experimental film from Spain Moving Images Festival Madrid 2021

shadowing

2012 Total duration 20min. 3 channel screening

Inspired by the art critic John Berger's essay 'Seker Ahmet and the forest' (1979), the work deals with the subject of memory. The structure of the film is episodic, each scene is repeatedly interrupted by another in a disorienting manner. It explores a notion of fragmented narrative within a cinematic context. Relating to the issue of 'the building of the Burma-Siam railway' during WWII, the story mixes with reality and fiction, documents and illusions where past and present co-exist. The film consists of a sequence of different visual materials; a painting, drawings, archive photographs, scenes with actors and animals. These various textures are combined in the timeline, observed and interpret the subject, as well as questioning the sense of time and space.

Chapter 2 - the field trip

2011 Single screening Total duration 06:22min.

The work deals with a found picture album of during The Second Sino-Japanese War. The assemblage of what it seems as propaganda photographs tells very little about what has happened in the location of Wuhan, China around 1938. Rather, the images give a hint of young Japanese soldiers being in an excursion or field trip afar, posing proudly and having good times. Since it lacks written information and explanation of this souvenir like album, I tried to interpret by visually investigating the photographs. Over the decades passing, some of them are faded, torn, went moldy, disappeared, and even mysteriously ripped off from the album itself. Rearranging the sequence, cropping the size, blowing up, cutting or moving, I added the sound of sketch drawing as in tracing and studying the images. Instead of looking at the pictures as factual registration, I treat this album as a personal object and my intention is to de-package it .

Distributed by Filmbank, EYE film Institute Netherlands.

Review from Forum Film Dokumenter

chapter 1 - the picture cards

2010HD single screening, original duration 06:27min.
The word game; ` Fortunately, Unfortunately` is used as the main narration of this work. It tells a story of a man who lives with a pet bird in his studio apartment. From the bird`s point of view, the voice over describes the details of the man`s routine in his life. Along with the mechanical narration, we see the picture cards of everyday objects one after another. They are all embossed, manipulated in scale and have the disposable look. Each object, though seemingly mundane, begins to take on a more sinister and darker meaning as the man’s daily routine slips into a slothful existence brought on by his own uncontrollable excesses. This piece expresses the fears that through our own consumption our objects eventually own us, as they become stopgaps for what is lacking in our lives.

https://vimeo.com/114136408

hunt hunter hunted

2009HDsingle screening original duration 11min.

It consists of a video footage of a socializing event for people and their dogs in the central park in New York City. The event for the people and their dogs include activities such as the Best in Park dog show, games, contests, and agility tests, etc. The voice over is not directly related to the event itself, but written based on a conversation between two artists dealing with photography. The artists have photographed hunting scene, and they are looking at their pictures of dead animals. The work deals with issues such as the relationship between man and animal, our industrialized world surrounded by animal imagery and urban domestication of our pets.

Supported by Bunkacho Japanese overseas research study program for artists

https://vimeo.com/139683062

shifting script

This work consists of a video projection, a loop in monitor and drawings/collage. It's an experiment on viewer perception of different given visual scenes within the cinematic context. Dealing with memory and information, the work questions the nature of storytelling that changes interpretations with passage of time. Using documentary structure, the projected narration (total duration 17min.) shifts from personal storytelling, discussion on speculating our future and act of memorizing. Here in the video extract, you see a young student trying to recite what he has memorized in front of the camera. Distracted by the background music playing on the radio, he is uneasy and the scene becomes other than what was expected.

Supported by Mondriaan Foundation
https://vimeo.com/14447934

Sukiyaki - a conversation piece

2005DV single channeltotal duration 9:00 min.

It is a conversation-piece as in a family portrait in video. Participants are linked by an activity, in this case having a sukiyaki party. The camera is focused on their hand movements while we hear their intimate conversations. They gossip about those characters who appear on the television screen. This work is about “otherness” in relation to the question of one’s identity. My intention was to play with the verbal and visual codes we use in our understanding and eventually to deconstruct an image of “other people”.

https://vimeo.com/139682572

paravan caravan

2004 Installation woodwork with hand made paper 150cm x 200cm/ video/ drawings

The theme of this work is ‘identity of the traveler’. I see the traveler as an unsettling and inversive existence, where the process of “I become another” is the constant experience. I have realized that traveling is more of an act of experience rather than understanding. It is an experience which not only stimulates the external self but to a large extent the inner self as well, as it eventually leads to questioning of one’s identity and the reason for its nomadic nature. Travelling through India by trains and state buses, there were many occasions that I found myself acting strange, incomprehensive and even absurd, which I believe was experiential in its own right. I suppose the works I present here reflect my thoughts and ideas during the course of my stay in India.

A paravan (screen) has different functions such as divider, decoration, or to create an extra space. I like to connect the idea of flexibility and mobility with the symbolic value of journey. One side of the screen includes 9 Indian languages stating “Repeat after me”. They are hand written on the patches of different papers such as banana leaf, rose flower, currency, stone wash and silk. On the other side has the same sentence in English printed out from the computer. The whole structure is foldable into a compact square size of 50cm x 50cm.

Supported by Mondiraan Foundation and Japan Foundation

This video loop is about my interpretation of time and timelessness through traveling. I have visited several different places of worship where people put their time and effort to create something everlasting. The speed of the images in the video is modified in which I intend to emphasize the notion of moving and standstills.

Tea Ceremony

Together with performance artist Monali Meher, we invited our neighbors who stay at the asylum seekers center for tea. The participants are from different nationalities and each one performed how tea/coffee is served in their own home country. The idea is not only to drink tea/coffee together but also experiencing hospitality regarding serving and being served. Paying attention to each individual’s ‘tea’, we are made aware of our backgrounds, history of where we came from, and our positions in the society.

-2004

skoki

DV single channel total duration 20 min.

Under the guidance of artist Joroslaw Kozlowski, 16 artists from Rijksakademie ( 11 different nationalities) stayed for 10 days in the village SKOKI, in Poland. Supposedly making art, we discuss our works, the art world and share everyday life. Far away from the art scene, we openly talk about the art world that we are all connected to. This documentation is not meant to be objective, it is edited from the perspective of the maker. “We are talking about position in art, attitude in art. When we discuss your work in your studios, we talk about specific things. Trying to talk about structure of the work, significance, importance and meanings of the work. And very little, we are touching the notion of attitude. The attitude which is always behind the work, which is very much hidden and not discussed.” -J. Kozlowski

Supported by Foundation Rijksakademie Amsterdam

https://vimeo.com/139694713

her

2000 single channel total duration 25:00 min.

The camera follows a wedding and the stories of friends around the bride.

Supported by Nomura Cultural Foundation Japan

https://vimeo.com/159606956

projection

Installationprojection on loop

A soldier is told to do a simple exercise, while his own multiple images appear in the form of the projection. He is alone in the studio in the dark. He gradually becomes confused and paranoid.

https://vimeo.com/139700081

sushi's world

1999 16mm film total duration 13min. family drama/comedy

Netherlands Media Art Institute archive