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Sho Takahashi's World

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2. The Tower of Tlatelolco

Since taking part in the world-wide student unrest of 1968 which shook Paris, Mexico City, Tokyo and other cities, Sho Takahashi has continued his association with radical movements in Japan and elsewhere. Having taken part in the direct struggle on environmental and land issues in Japan, he has now become engaged in resisting the consequences of the global economy and unrestricted finance capitalism. He maintains contacts with the Zapatistas, one of the first peasant risings to use modern technologies, such as the Internet, to advance their cause. To emphasise the important role of radical students with their enthusiasm and special technical knowledge, Takahashi has designed a tower for the sculpture park on the magnificent campus of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) to mark the occasions on which students have died in large numbers for their ideals of a better society.

The Student Tower marks particularly the massacres of Tlatelolco in Mexico City (2 October 1968), in the TianAnMen Square in Beijing (4 June 1989) and in Tobong-gu in Seoul (19 April 1960) in each of which places several hundred students were killed.