>>>> Japanese
Exhibition: Mercedes-Benz Art Scope 2018-2020
Participating Artists: Tsuyoshi Hisakado, Haris Epaminonda, Meiro Koizumi
July 23 (Thursday/national holiday) - September 6 (Sunday), 2020
Hara Museum of Contemporary Art (Tokyo)
The Hara Museum of Contemporary Art is delighted to present Mercedes-Benz Art Scope 2018-2020. Since 2003, the Hara Museum has partnered with Mercedes-Benz Japan in the Art Scope artist-in-residence program which invites young artists from Japan and Germany to live in and draw inspiration from a different cultural environment. Arts Initiative Tokyo [AIT] cooperate this program and artist-in-residence program.
In 2018, the Japanese artist Tsuyoshi Hisakado was sent to Berlin for the 2018-2020 program and from Germany, the Cypriot artist Haris Epaminonda was sent to Tokyo in 2019. These two, as well as a previous Art Scope participant, Meiro Koizumi (Berlin, 2010), come together in this exhibition to present their latest creations, produced under the challenging constraints, both social and physical, of the current health crisis facing humanity.
Highlights
Hisakado has been drawing increasing attention for installations that incorporate samples collected of everyday phenomena, memories retained by particular locations and historical events and transformed into fragments of sound, light, and sculpture. Last year, his collaborative work with Apichatpong Weerasethakul debuted at the 58th Venice Biennale. The same year saw the staging of his first theater work Practice of Spiral. In March 2020, Practice of Spiral, his first large-scale solo exhibition in Japan, opened at the Toyota Municipal Museum of Art. For this exhibition, Hisakado, in his usual fashion of engaging in a dialog with a given space to find inspiration, has created an installation in the museum's Gallery II that takes advantage of its unique configuration − a gentle arc that seems to enclose the outer garden. Within the gallery space Illuminated only by natural light, the artist uses glowing colors and sound to engage and rarify the senses.
Tsuyoshi Hisakado, Gale, 2017 (reference image)
Haris Epaminonda uses the technique of collage in her film/video works and installations. She became a focus of international attention at the 58th Venice Biennale last year when she was given the Silver Lion for a Promising Young Participant. As a long admirer of Japanese culture that began with an interest in the Japanese film director Yasujiro Ozu, Epaminonda, on her maiden visit to Japan to take up her residency last summer, chose to reside in both Tokyo and Kyoto. In this exhibition, she has collaborated with the German artist Daniel Gustav Cramer in a work entitled Untitled #01 b/l which takes as its theme the music of Hiroshi Yoshimura, an artist closely associated with the Hara Museum in the past. She also presents a video work Japan Diaries that she made on Super 8 film during her stay in Japan and digitized for this exhibition.
Haris Epaminonda, VOL. XXVII, 2019 (reference image)
Photo © Andrea Avezzù Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia 58th International Art Exhibition- La Biennale di Venezia, May You Live In Interesting Times
Meiro Koizumi is known for works that use theatrical techniques to highlight the relationship between humans and humans, between humans and society, and between words and the body. In recent years, he has also been creating artwork that uses VR (virtual reality) technology. At the Aichi Triennale last year, Koizumi made a big splash with the premier of Prometheus Bound, his first theater piece using VR technology. In this exhibition, he is presenting Anti-Dream #1 (Room with a Sculpture), a sound sculpture that requires visitors to listen to sounds while moving between two gallery spaces, and Anti-Dream #2 ( In a Temple) for which visitors download and listen to an audio file while in the city.
Meiro Koizumi, New Breath just After the Tempest, 2018 (reference image)
Participating Artists
Tsuyoshi Hisakado
Born in 1981 and lives in Kyoto, Hisakado received an M.F.A. in sculpture at Kyoto City University of Arts in 2007. His major exhibitions in recent years include Aichi Triennale 2016, Culture City of East Asia 2017 Kyoto: Asia Corridor Contemporary Art Exhibition, MAM Project 025 (Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, 2018) and the 58th Venice Biennale International Exhibition May You Live in Interesting Times. In 2016, he created the stage design for chelfitsch's Time's Journey Through a Room which was performed worldwide. In 2019, his debut theater work Practice of Spiral was staged at ROHM Theatre Kyoto as part of the Kyoto Experiment: Kyoto International Performing Arts Festival. Hisakado's first large-scale solo exhibition in Japan Practice of Spiral opened at the Toyota Municipal Museum of Art in March 2020.
Haris Epaminonda
Born in Nicosia, Cyprus in 1980 and lives in Berlin, Epaminonda studied at the Royal College of Art and Kingston University in England. In 2013, she was one of four artists shortlisted for Germany's preeminent art prize, the Preis der Nationalgalerie. She represented Cyprus at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007 Old earth, no more lies, I've seen you ... and the 58th Venice Biennale May You Live in Interesting Times where she won the Silver Lion for a Promising Young Participant. She has also contributed to many other international exhibitions such as the Berlin Biennale (2008) and dOCUMENTA 13 (2012) in Kassel, Germany. In Japan, she participated in the group exhibition The Kaleidoscopic Eye: Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection at the Mori Art Museum in 2009.
Meiro Koizumi
Born in Gunma, Japan in 1976 and lives in Yokohama, Koizumi graduated from International Christian University and studied at Chelsea College of Art and Design (London). His past solo exhibitions include MAM Project 009 Koizumi Meiro at Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2009), Projects 99: Meiro Koizumi at The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2013), Trapped Voice Would Dream of Silence, Arts Maebashi, Maebashi, Japan (2015) and Battlelands at Perez Art Museum Miami (2018). Group shows include Art Scope 2009-2011: Invisible Memories, Hara Museum of Contemporary Art (2011), Future Generation Art Prize 2012, Pinchuk Art Center, Kiev (2012), Demarcation, Ginza Maison Hermès Le Forum, Tokyo (2015), the 12th Shanghai Biennale (2018) and Sharjah Biennial 14, UAE (2019). His works are included in numerous collections all over the world. His VR-incorporated theater work Prometheus Bound was presented at Aichi Triennale 2019.
Left: Tsuyoshi Hisakado / Middle: Haris Epaminonda / Right: Meiro Koizumi
About Mercedes-Benz Art Scope
This program was launched in 1991 under the name Art Scope and the Hara Museum has been a partner since 2003. Starting with the present exhibition, the program has been renamed Mercedes-Benz Art Scope.
As its main points, the program seeks to promote the development of contemporary art and the exchange of culture between Japan and Europe by providing an artist-in-residence experience of approximately 3 months in Berlin for Japanese artists and in Tokyo for German artists, and organizing and holding a group exhibition featuring the participating artists at the Hara Museum to present the results of their experience.
In addition to the name change, it was decided that one past participant of the program would be invited as a guest artist. It was thought that by showcasing the recent work of past participants, a light would be shone on the trajectory of their post-residence careers, and therefore on the program's history and evolution of more than a quarter of a century.
In recent years, artist-in-residence programs have been flourishing throughout the world as a means of enabling individual artists to create work or conduct research for that purpose for a given period of time and to deepen cultural exchange at the place of residence. In Japan, municipalities, NPOs and other bodies have been actively engaged in such activities since the 1990s.
The following is a list of previous Art Scope exhibitions held at the Hara Museum.
2017 Mercedes-Benz Art Scope 2015-2017: Wandering to Wonder★
Participating artists: Taro Izumi, Menja Stevenson, Tokihiro Sato
2014 Art Scope 2012-2014 - Remains of Their Journeys
Participating artists: Ryosuke Imamura, Satoshi Ohno, Rita Hensen, Benedikt Partenheimer
2011 Art Scope 2009-2011: Invisible Memories
Participating artists: Meiro Koizumi, Hiroe Saeki, Eva Berendes, Jan Scharrelmann
2008 Art Scope 2007 / 2008 - Faces of Existence★
Participating artists: Izumi Kato, Yuken Teruya, Eva Teppe, Ascan Pinckernelle
2006 Art Scope 2005 / 2006 - Interface Complex★
Participating artists: Hiroharu Mori, Kohei Nawa, Katja Strunz, Georg Winter
2005 Art Scope 2004: Cityscape into Art - Michiko Shoji Johannes Wohnseifer
Participating artists: Michiko Shoji, Johannes Wohnseifer
Before the Hara Museum's partnership began, Art Scope was a program that sent only Japanese artists to Monflanquin in the south of France. The artists who participated during this period are as follows.
Satoko Masuda (1991), Ko Kashiwagi (1992), Tokihiro Sato (1993), Kenjiro Okazaki (1994), Keita Egami (1995), Seigen Kyu (1996), Asako Tokitsu (1997), Takanobu Kobayashi (1998), Yasuko Iba (1999), Tomoko Maekawa (2000), Sayaka Akiyama (2001), Nobuyuki Takahashi (2002)
To mark the start of the Hara Museum's partnership, the twelve artists were featured in 12 Years of Art Scope: Reflection on Artist in Residence which was held in 2003.
A star (★) is used to indicate exhibitions that were also held at Daimler Contemporary, the contemporary art gallery operated by Daimler AG in Berlin.
Exhibition Details
Title: Mercedes-Benz Art Scope 2018-2020
Dates (revised): July 23 (Thursday/national holiday) - September 6 (Sunday), 2020
Venue: Hara Museum of Contemporary Art (4-7-25 Kitashinagawa, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo 140-0001)
www.haramuseum.or.jp
Organized by: Hara Museum of Contemporary Art and Mercedes-Benz Japan, Co., Ltd.
Under the auspices of: Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Japan
Cooperation provided by: HOLBEIN ART MATERIALS INC.
Cooperation and residency program coordination provided by: Arts Initiative Tokyo [AIT]
Closed: Mondays (except August 10) and August 11
Admission: General 1,100 yen; Students 700 yen (high school and university) or 500 yen (elementary and junior high); Free for Hara Museum members and students through high school every Saturday during the school term
Directions: 5 minutes by taxi or 15 minutes on foot from JR Shinagawa Station (Takanawa exit); or from the same station take the 反No.96 bus, get off at the first stop (Gotenyama) and walk 3 minutes.
*A reservation is required in order to visit the museum. For details, please go to the museum website.www.haramuseum.or.jp
*Please note that the exhibition period and starting date are subject to change depending on the Covid-19 situation.
About Mercedes-Benz Art Scope
This program was launched in 1991 under the name Art Scope and the Hara Museum has been a partner since 2003. Starting with the present exhibition, the program has been renamed Mercedes-Benz Art Scope.
As its main points, the program seeks to promote the development of contemporary art and the exchange of culture between Japan and Europe by providing an artist-in-residence experience of approximately 3 months in Berlin for Japanese artists and in Tokyo for German artists, and organizing and holding a group exhibition featuring the participating artists at the Hara Museum to present the results of their experience.
In addition to the name change, it was decided that one past participant of the program would be invited as a guest artist. It was thought that by showcasing the recent work of past participants, a light would be shone on the trajectory of their post-residence careers, and therefore on the program's history and evolution of more than a quarter of a century.
In recent years, artist-in-residence programs have been flourishing throughout the world as a means of enabling individual artists to create work or conduct research for that purpose for a given period of time and to deepen cultural exchange at the place of residence. In Japan, municipalities, NPOs and other bodies have been actively engaged in such activities since the 1990s.
>>> Japanese
Petra Noordkamp
(Lives and works in Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
©Awoiska van der Molen, courtesy of the artist
Petra Noordkamp moves fluidly between photography and film. She explores the influence of experiences, memories, movies and dreams on the perception of architecture and the urban environment. Her work is characterized by a great love of simplicity, emptiness, form and aesthetics, radiating a feeling of loneliness, alienation and melancholy.
She lives and works in Amsterdam where she studied photography at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy. In 2012, her first short film The Mother, the Son and the Architect was shown in an exhibition of her work at Foam in Amsterdam and was selected for various Dutch and international film festivals and exhibitions. She was an artist-in-residence at the American Academy in Rome in 2013. In 2014 the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in New York commissioned her to make a short film about the Land Art work and memorial Il Grande Cretto di Gibellina by the Italian artist Alberto Burri. This film was among others screened at the Guggenheim in New York, K21 in Dusseldorf, MAXXI in Rome and Centre Pompidou in Paris. Her film When you return I'll be living by the waterside (2017) had its world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in January 2018 and it won the Move Cine Arch Award for best form in Venice. Her latest installation Fragile-Handle with Care was a commission from MAXXI National Museum of Contemporary Art and Architecture in Rome, for the Terre in Movimento project.
During the residency in the Arts Initiative Tokyo, she wants to work out the topics - silence and fear - that concerns her. She is going to do research into meditative spaces but also wants to investigate the subject of fear, her (our) need for control, our vulnerability.
Website
Excerpt: Il Grande Cretto di Gibellina
Trailer: When you return I'll be living by the waterside
Residency: January 17 - April 12, 2020
Co-organized by Mondriaan Fonds
Installation view film project Fragile - Handle with Care at 'Terre in Movimento' in MAXXI, Rome, May 11 - September 1, 2019
Installation view film project When you return I'll be living by the waterside in Pomphuis, Culemborg, September 29, 2017
Installation view film project La Madre, il Figlio e l'Architetto at 'Extraordinary Visions. L'Italia ci guarda', MAXXI, Rome, June 2 - October 23, 2016
Installation view film project Il Grande Cretto di Gibellina at 'Alberto Burri. The Trauma of Painting', The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, October 9, 2015 - January 6, 2016
Installation view photo work Milano Centrale, 2009 at 'The Mirror and Lamp Show' in Jagtlust, 's Graveland, March 25 - May 3, 2015
All images ©Petra Noordkamp, courtesy of the artist
>>> Japanese
ErGao
(Lives and works in Guangzhou, China)
ErGao, courtesy of the artist
ErGao is a multi-media dancer/choreographer whose work uses dance, film, installation and other creative strategies. After graduating from Guangdong cantonese opera school in 2001, he studied in adult college class of joint college of Sun Yat-sen University and Guang Dong Dance College in 2002, majoring in contemporary dance. In 2006, he graduated from APA, Hong Kong with full scholarship.
ErGao founded ErGao Dance Production Group (EDPG) in 2007 in Guangzhou, with a focus on dance theatre, dance film, community art and dance education. His productions continuously see the body as the primary medium of work and the site of artistic investigation, using diverse strategies to explore Chinese social and cultural identities, sex, gender and other topics.
Between 2007 and 2012, ErGao was invited to participate in multiple projects in collaboration with international dance companies and dance festivals, including Rubatu Tanz Company, Angie Hiesl and Roland Kaiser (Germany), Living Dance Studio (China), Limitrof Company (France), Emio Greco | PC (Holland). After 2012, ErGao accepted multiple commissions from different arts organizations and art festivals, including Ibsen International (Norway), Fabbrica Europa (Italy), Hong Kong Arts Festival, Hong Kong Jumping Frames Dance Film Festival (Hong Kong), Guangdong Modern Dance Festival, Guangdong Modern Dance Company, Guangdong Times Museum (Guangzhou), Shanghai Ming Contemporary Art Museum (Shanghai), DPAC Dance Company (Malaysia) and other organizations. He was selected as resident artist of Pro Helvetia - Swiss Arts Council in 2019. In 2015, German's media "Deutsche Welle" named Ergao "one of the bright stars of contemporary dance in China."
Website
Residency: January 14 - February 29, 2020
Supported by: The Agency for Cultural Affairs Government of Japan in the fiscal 2019
Dance Square, Performance, 2018, photo by Quan Ni, courtesy of the artist
Dance camp of National young Dancers Development Plan, 2018, courtesy of the artist
"Body and Daily Objects" workshop, 2015, photo by Gu Tianchang, courtesy of the artist
Kung Hei Fat Choy, 2019, photo by Chun Li, courtesy of the artist
Kung Hei Fat Choy, 2019, photo by Chun Li, courtesy of the artist
>>> Japanese
Sutthirat Supaparinya
(Born in Chiang Mai, lives and works in Chiang Mai, Thailand)
Photo by Jeremy Samuelson
Sutthirat earned a BFA in painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts at Chiang Mai University and a postgraduate diploma in Media Arts from Hochschule Fuer Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig, Germany.
The artwork of Sutthirat Supaparinya's encompasses a variety of mediums such as installation, objects, still photos and moving images. With her artistic practice and further research to conduct, she interprets the public information to question, and reveals its structure that is affective upon her and the viewer as national/global citizen. Her recent projects focus on the history and the impact of human activities giving to the other existence and the histrocial and cultural landscape within.
Museums and galleries that have featured Sutthirat's works include Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Mori Art Museum, Japan, Jim Thompson Art Center, Maiiam Contemporary Art Museum, Gallery Ver, Thailand, Queensland Art Gallery and Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, Australia, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, USA, Singapore Art Museum and ArtScience Museum, Singapore, Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan, Hong Kong Arts Centre, Hong Kong, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Poland, along with international festivals and biennials such as Koganecho Bazaar 2011 in Yokohama, Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions 2012 and 2018, Japan, EVA International [Ireland's Biennial] in Limerick City, Ireland, 12th Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, South Korea, Cairo Biennale 13 in Cairo, Eygpt and Biennale Jogja Equator #5, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
As a visual artist in the art community of Chiang Mai, she has found and is operation Chiang Mai Art Conversation(CAC) since 2013. Most recently, she was also the director of Asian Culture Station (ACS) in the year of 2016-19, when CAC partnered with the Japan Foundation Asia Center to establish the cultural station in the heart of Chiang Mai. CAC aims to promote contemporary art in Chiang Mai while ACS activated Asian culture and to promote its network.
Residency: September 6 - October 15, 2019
Supported by: 2019 The Asia Center Fellowship Program
When Need Moves the Earth, video, 2014
When Need Moves the Earth, video, 2014
After the Residency
AIT had a chance to ask some questions to the artist, Suthirat Supaparinya after she has gone back to her home country to look back what she experienced during the The Asia Center Fellowship Program.
AIT: Previously, you have participated in some residencies and joined art exhibitions at various places in Japan. How was this time different from those experiences, and what did you find in particular?
Supaparinya (Som): I'm flexible to travel and meet new people with a loosely focus on 2-3 frames. This time allowed me to travel and explore on my own to many cities outside of Tokyo. This way, I can see a bigger and realistic picture of the country as well as its relation to the neighboring countries.
AIT: What would this fellowship benefit your future practice?
Som: My board interest rooted in my practice is "landscape." Currently and in the future, my attention will involve with history, traveling routes, issues on geopolitical/economic/natural resource, and the change of those landscapes. The fellowship allowed me to go, see and talk with locals what I have only learned through books or on hearsay. It's hard for me to go straight to concentrate on one project/idea after the trip since the knowledge I got through those direct communication is vast and I need to digest and research further in details, in order to develop on each subject I'm interested in. This research trip was a great opportunity for me to start a new chapter in my career.
AIT: You have vigorously led Asian Culture Station (ACS)*1 forward until recently with the support of Asia Center, and now it is closed after completing its term. How do you describe the city of Chiang Mai have input cultural/intellectual resources from the previous programs, and as an artist who is based in Chiang Mai, what is your future hope for the city after ACS?
Som: I think ACS was one engine that helped to move contemporary arts and culture in the city with the other organizations and individuals who were willing to enhance their network and knowledge. Each of us seemed to push and activate the importance of cultural/intellectual practice. I'm grateful to see the seed we have planted (both direct and indirect way) to grow on their own. I have seen some newly initiated projects sprouting up in an energetic way in both government and private sectors, even though the political situation and economic slowdown that most of us experienced recently. I wish that our initiative and a small collective project such as ACS and CAC*2 can give an inspiration to many more people to get together and create what they want for Chiang Mai to be.
*1 | Asian Culture Station. From 2016 to 2019, ACS partnered with Japan Foundation Asia Center and hosted various art programs such exhibitions, talks, and symposia all open to the public. Located centrally in Chiang Mai, just off to Nimmanhaemin Road, ACS attracted many local creative minds, international artists, curators and professionals to visit. Her interview is also available on the following website. SUTTHIRAT SUPAPARINYA――Knocking on Doors
*2 | Chaing Mai Art Conversation. Along with her art production, Som has been a leading member of CAC since its establishment.
>>> Japanese
Aron Landahl
(Born in Sweden 1984. Lives and works in Uppsala, Sweden)
Aron Landahl was raised on the island of Gotland in the Baltic sea. As an illustrator, Aron Landahl's images have been seen in various magazines throughout Sweden. Its setting often involves elements from the nature and the quieter dwelling with some distances away from the peak of action. The mood is somewhat eerie. Hatching with steel pen and ink creates misty details for the viewers to observe. Landahl plans his debut to publish a book in Sweden as the illustrator and author of Dropp Dropp, a horror story for three-year olds.
When he was a child, he found a book at the local communal library called 100 views of Mt. Fuji with magnificent images within. Now, some decades later, he travels to Japan to further study the world of Hokusai and his works of art. With this, the artistic examination is to develop the project 100 views of Karlsö, a local application of Hokusai's great works. The centre of these views will instead be the islands of Karlsö, situated in the Gotlandic area where Landahl was raised. These islands are regionally famous for their unique cakelike shapes attracting birds and plants of rare kinds.
Website
Residency: September - November, 2019
Supported by: Iaspis
Island of Karlsö ©Aron Landahl
Ophelia's shadow theatre, Poster illustration ©Aron Landahl
Editorial Illustrations ©Aron Landahl
>>> Japanese
Charlott Markus
(Born in Sweden, works and lives in Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
Charlott Markus is a Swedish visual artist living and working in Amsterdam. After graduating from the Photography Department of the Gerrit Rietveld Academy her works has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout the Netherlands and abroad. Markus constructs still-lifes and arrangements that predominantly end up as photographic series and as site-specific spatial pieces. Markus is the recipient of the Proven Talent grant from The Mondriaan foundation in 2016 supporting her work for four years. The way Markus works is not only investigating space, color and form but an indirect investigation into relations and structures (often mixed with her own biography). Aside from being a visual artist Markus occasionally organizes events and curates exhibitions with themes close to her own artist practice.
Her solo shows includes "Markus&I" (Weekender Trailer Show, Unseen Photo Fair, Amsterdam, 2014), "Live at: Matter of Gradation" (Intelligentsia Gallery, Beijing, 2015), "Solitaire" (Probe Project Space, Suze May Sho, Amsterdam, 2017). Her works are also exhibited in the group shows including "Collective Thinking, For Freedoms" at Aperture Foundation, NY (2017), "Who are we again?" at Arti et Amicitiae, Amsterdam (2018).
Through the residency at AIT she will develop new ways of seeing and to make an in-depth acquaintance with history and symbolism within the fields of Japanese textiles, traditions and within the daily (art) life of a contemporary Japan.
Website
Residency: January 9 - April 4, 2018
Co-organized by Mondriaan Fonds
Event: AIT ARTIST TALK #75 "Indefinite ways of actual seeing"
Date: Tuesday, February 19, 2019
Time: 19:00 - 21:00 (18:30 Door open)
Venue: Daikanyama AIT Room
Matter of Gradation #II, 2015, Felt, diverse textiles, drawing paper, calligraphy silk, video projection, wood / Installation
©Charlott Markus
Partition #3 (Markus&I), 2018, Oak wood, ink print, silk thread, various textiles,
©Charlott Markus
Partition #4 (apparition), 2018, 30 secondhand lace curtains, 2 self-made textile pieces, aluminium tubes, cotton wire
©Charlott Markus
Solitaire, 2017, Wood, paint, textile, plastic, LEE filters / Installation - photography
©Charlott Markus
>>> Japanese
Stacey Hunter
(b.1979 in Scotland, lives and works in Edinburgh)
Stacey Hunter is a British curator and producer based in Scotland. Her expertise lies in developing programmes to promote design locally and internationally through exhibitions, events, symposia and cultural projects. In 2007 she co-programmed and delivered "The Six Cities Design Festival", a "£3M national festival of design" in Scotland. Her doctoral thesis in architecture is the first major review of Scotland's emergent New Urbanism (University of Edinburgh, 2015).
In 2015 she founded Local Heroes, a curatorial agency - based in Edinburgh - that connects audiences with exceptional Scottish design. Local Heroes is an ongoing cultural project promoting and supporting design culture in Scotland and abroad through exhibitions and events providing unique opportunities for people to appreciate Scotland's contemporary design landscape. In August 2016 Local Heroes produced a major exhibition of newly commissioned Scottish design souvenirs at Edinburgh Airport. A key part of Scotland's Year of Innovation, Architecture and Design, Local Heroes presented contemporary design to a global audience spanning 120 different locations and three continents. In 2018 Local Heroes curated and produced a major exhibition called "Made in Glasgow" by Local Heroes which brought together the city's leading designers to coincide with the hosting of the Berlin / Glasgow 2018 European Championships.
Her interest in this residency stems from a preoccupation with the souvenir as an object and the cultures and rituals of gift-giving - something Japan in particular has a rich and nuanced history of. What interests her most about Japan is its distinctive culture and how designers there, and design curators, communicate key aspects of that culture through the design of objects. Broadly, she would also hope to achieve an enhanced knowledge and understanding of design processes within Japanese ceramics.
Website
Residency: January 9, 2019 - March 5, 2019
Supported by: The Agency for Cultural Affairs Government of Japan in the fiscal 2018
Event: Scotland - Japan / Curator Talk by Stacey Hunter
Date: Saturday, February 16, 2019 / 14:30 - 16:30 (14:00 Door open)
Venue: 2016/ SHOP (Arita, Saga)
Residency Programme｜Report & Interview: Download (PDF/1.4MB) Edited by Ben Davis
Article: Beyond the Megapolis: Japanese Design & Local Heroes by Stacey Hunter (The Skinny)
How the creative industries can change Scotland for the better (The Scotsman)
Installation shot from "Local Heroes" at Edinburgh Airport, 2016, Photo by Ross Fraser McLean
Exhibition "Made in Glasgow", 2018, Photo by Christina Kernohan
Design & Personal Identity exhibition at Edinburgh City Art Centre, 2018
Article on Contemporary Clay on "The Skinny", April issue, 2018
Read online
>>> Japanese
Florence Dwyer
(b.1992 in London, lives and works in Glasgow)
Florence Dwyer is an artist who currently lives and works in Glasgow, Scotland where she graduated from The Glasgow School of Art in 2014. Dwyer's practice has previously been informed by research into the politics behind the process of building, making and inhabiting and predominantly takes the form of ceramics, textile pieces or furniture. Dwyer is particularly interested in the design of domestic settings and different models of living and my work predominantly takes the form of ceramics, textile pieces or furniture, and researching the history of the people, especially in relation to craft, industry and labour practices and thinking about political relevance of this in relation to everyday life, in particularly the domestic realm. This has previously involved working rigorously with archives and within factories themselves to explore lesser known stories from the ground up. The work then usually manifests through drawing connections with materials which feel relevant to the project, investigating their origins and reacting to their properties.
Her artworks have been previously shown at the numerous exhibitions such as "I remain Yours" (The Tenement House, Glasgow, 2018), "Village College" (The Lighthouse Glasgow, 2018), "Reel Meal" (David Dale Gallery Garden, 2017). Dwyer is a recipient of the following major awards; Inches Carr Craft Award (2018) and Glasgow Life Visual Arts and Crafts Mentoring Award. (2017-18)
For the first part of the residency Dwyer will look in to the design and social impact of Nagaya, row houses created in the Edo period as living spaces for the common class. Residents within the same building lived in close proximity to each other, creating a sense of community at a time of high density population growth in the capital, to think about how craft is ingrained in these domestic spaces and how the cooperation mentality of the present day Japanese society may have stemmed from these living conditions in the Edo period. In Arita, she will interview potters who work in different production sites, explore the workers relation to ceramics outside of the factory/studio realm.
Website
Residency: January 9, 2019 - March 19, 2019
Supported by: The Agency for Cultural Affairs Government of Japan in the fiscal 2018
Event: AIT ARTIST TALK #76 "Greenware"
Date: ednesday, March 20, 2019 / 19:00 - 20:30
Venue: OLDHAUS, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
Residency Programme｜Report & Interview: Download (PDF/1.4MB) Edited by Ben Davis
Report: RealTokyo Culture Review Site: AIT ARTIST TALK #76 "Greenware"
Detail of I Remain Yours, objects collected, donated and borrowed from Eliz Murphy, Annette Rauf,
Jane Sutherland and Margaret Watt, 2018
Photograph by Malcolm Cochrane
©Florence Dwyer
I Remain Yours, objects collected, donated and borrowed from Eliz Murphy, Annette Rauf,
Jane Sutherland and Margaret Watt, 2018
Photograph by Malcolm Cochrane
©Florence Dwyer
Making the Bed, Laying the Table, Glasgow Sculpture Studios, 2016
Works made in collaboration with Simon Worthington and Katie Schwab
Photograph by Max Slaven
©Florence Dwyer
Home-ware, Tufted Rug, 2018
Photograph by Malcolm Cochrane
©Florence Dwyer
>>> Japanese
Ylva Carlgren
(b.1984 in Luleå. Lives and works in Stockholm)
Ylva Carlgren works with non-figurative watercolor painting. The work is experimental and systematic. Through a meticulous and controlled layering technique, fields of color are gradually charged with light, manipulating the perceptual field. The work is an exploration of the limitations of her medium. It is a process of perfection where the artist's practice becomes and end in and of itself. Relinquishing any and all mimetic pretension, Carlgren creates a reduced visual language characterized by presence and stillness.
Carlgren holds an MFA from Valand School of Fine Arts in Gothenburg, Sweden. She is the recipient of grants from the Swedish Arts Grants Committee, the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm and Helge Ax:son Johnson Foundation.
She has exhibited in solo and group shows such as "300 Layers" (solo exhibition at Gallery Steinsland Berliner, Stockholm, Sweden, 2018), "The Shadows' call" (solo exhibition at Gallery Steinsland Berliner, Stockholm, Sweden, 2016), and "In Light of Absence". (duo exhibition at Market art fair, Stockholm, Sweden, 2017)
Website: Ylva Carlgren
Stay: September 18 - December 15, 2018
Co-organized by IASPIS
Black square on grey (watercolor on paper, 50 x 50cm, 2017)
White square on black (watercolor on paper, 50 x 50cm, 2018)
In light of absence (6) (watercolour on paper, 73 x 53cm, 2016)
Installation view (Galleri Steinsland Berliner, Stockholm, 2018)
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Esther Vossen（Born in & Lives in the Netherlands）
Esther Vossen is director and curator at Het Vijfde Seizoen, an artist residency in the mental health institute Altrecht (Utrecht, The Netherlands). At Altrecht she is as well art consultant and responsible for the art collection. At the Fifth Season she had developed a training programme for psychiatrist (in training) and art students. She regularly lectures and give workshops about art and psychiatry. She is curator of exhibitions that presents the works made at The Fifth Season.
Vossen is board member at the Association of Corporate Art Collections Netherlands and external art advisor for the Province of Brabant. She studied Journalism and worked as a program maker for a Dutch national broadcast company. Hereafter she studied at the art academy Amsterdam and art history at the University of Amsterdam. Since 1998 she was project manager and curator at several international arts institutes, like de Appel Arts Centre, de Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten and the Dutch national museum of The Mind, Het Dolhuys.
http://www.vijfde-seizoen.nl/en/
Residency: August 24, 2018 - September 5, 2018
Supported by: The Nippon Foundation, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands Tokyo
Lecture :実践1 - 森の中の柔らかな協働：精神科医療施設とアートの関わり -
Date and Time: Saturday, August 25, 2018 13:00-15:00
Venue: Daikanyama AIT Room
Workshop: 実践2 - 子どもとアーティストのワークショップ・ファシリテーション -
Date and Time: Saturday, September 1, 2018 13:00-16:00
Venue: Daikanyama ※Sold out
