Arab News Japan

DUBAI: This summer, Tokyo Arts and Space Hongo (TOKAS) presents From Toba with Love, a film installation and solo show by American artist and researcher Christopher Joshua Benton.

The project explores a surprising connection between pearl divers from the Arabian Gulf and Japan’s ama divers, fewer than 600 of whom are still active today.

Benton uses AI tools to bring old photos to life and fill in missing pieces of history, shining a light on links between the two coastal cultures.

Over several months, Benton spent time in Japan’s Mie Prefecture, working with local historians and retired ama. He joined them in their daily routines, wearing wetsuits, learning their stories and riding through fishing towns.

He also made return trips to Ras Al Khaimah in the UAE, his home region, to explore the Gulf’s own pearl-diving past.

The result is a three-part film series: Lover’s Shell, The Copper Stranger, and From Toba with Love.

The series tells the fictional story of Mabrook, an African-born Gulf diver, and Paru, a Japanese ama, and the impossible romance between them.

The films blend old postcards, personal photos, and colonial-era archives from Japan and Northwestern University, reimagined using AI.

The installation itself is shown inside a black-lacquered structure inspired by the traditional amagoya, a wooden hut where divers rest, warm up and share stories. Visitors are invited to sit in a circle surrounded by film, sound and memory.

Benton calls his method “pastmaking,” a blend of storytelling and historical research that blurs the lines between fact and fiction to give voice to stories that have been left out of the official record.

Benton’s work has been shown at cultural institutions across the Middle East, including the Public Art Abu Dhabi Biennial and Jameel Arts Centre. He earned a master’s degree from MIT in Art, Culture, and Technology, supported by the Salama Bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation.