Asking the Repentistas – Peneira & Sonhador – to remix my octopus works

Asking the Repentistas to Remix My Octopus Works (2006) is a two‑channel video work by Japanese artist Shimabuku. In this experimental piece, Shimabuku enlists Brazilian street singers, or Repentistas, to reinterpret and perform narratives inspired by his earlier “octopus” projects. Through a dialogue between visual documentation of his encounters with octopuses and the spontaneous, improvised oral storytelling of the Repentistas, the work explores cross-cultural collaboration, narrative translation, and the poetic intersections between human and non-human life. The result is a playful, immersive meditation on memory, mythology, and the act of storytelling itself.