The Pokémon Company is teaming up with New York-based artist Daniel Arsham to imagine what archaeologists might see uncovering Pokémon as ancient artifacts 1,000 years into the future. First launched in Japan in 1996, Pokémon has become and maintained its title as one of the most popular children’s entertainment properties in the world. From video games and a TV series to the trading card game, branded apparel, and now a Netflix original Pokémon movie, Pokémon has entered the homes, minds, and hearts of millions. Just like the “pocket monsters” it consists of, the brand continues to evolve constantly.
Pokémon is very popular among children but it’s also incredibly popular amongst adults as well. The Pokémon GO craze continues to see its fair share of adult players out in public trying to catch rare Pokémon with the geolocation-powered features of the augmented reality mobile game. Beyond the cartoonish visuals, what lies beneath is the very human excitement about discovering, collecting, and sharing. More than just a game or TV show, Pokémon is the bug or rock collection of the increasingly digital 21st century.
This new art project is called “Daniel Arsham x Pokémon” and is focused around the concept of taking something that’s part of present-day culture and viewing it from far outside the era in which it dwells. Arsham fully realizes this effect by sculpting many well known and loved Pokémon characters as crumbling statuettes weathered by an immense passage of time. The American artist explains “When I was a little child, I didn’t really know that Pokémon was from a different country. It just felt like it was part of our culture or our universe…and I think that kind of speaks to its global appeal and its global nature.”
During the project’s announcement, Arsham says “A lot my work really involves integration of things from everyday life or popular culture, so it’s natural to bring in Pokémon to my universe. A lot of my work is about imagining a future in a thousand or ten-thousand years that contains the remnants of this era [and] this culture.” He was granted access to all the Pokémon designs so he could first sculpt them in clay, reaching a high level of detail, and later build them at a larger scale in bronze. Arsham describes his motivation behind this concept and the desired effect on others. “I think that there’s something prolific and very impactful about trying to step outside of our own time-frame. It gives us a perspective on our own experience and lives, and through these works, I hope to be able to shift people’s understanding about time in general.”
Psychologically, the project is quite powerful because it focuses on the deep philosophical concept of how time changes one’s perspective of things. That idea is why nostalgia is so powerful. Time also conjures up feelings of entrapment, being stuck within the confines of a dimension we cannot move freely throughout and thus adds mystique when remnants of an era long ago are uncovered. This sense of discovery and mystery is at the core of the property in which the project is centered. Arsham understands that well and doesn’t just want his audience to view his meticulously crafted, physical recreations of favorite childhood characters from different spatial perspectives but temporally as well.
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Source: The Pokémon Company
