Vol25　「On Foreign Ground」

Date　2013.10.24　　16：00～17：30

Exhibition Title（dates）："On Foreign Ground"(2013.10.16-27)
Artist：Suzanne Mooney

Participants：Artists,Armaud Gallizia (Youkobo residence artist from France,Residence 1)Kunio Motoe(pfofessor,Tma university of Arts), Hiroko Murata＆Tatsuhiko Murata, (Youkobo direcors),Mika harigai＆Jaime Humphreys (staff),etc.

Moderator：Jaime Humphreys
Documentation：Mika Harigai＆Jaime Humphreys

 

Suzanne: The work shown here is related to previous work I made. I will say a few words here about the process of making the work itself. I am trying out a new idea here for the first time. I started out last year with the intention of exhibiting drawings, but moved away from my original plans to show this series of photographs and digital images.  The landscape you see in the photos is a place I first visited when I was 14/15 years old. I'm interested in our relationship with the landscape, how humans separate nature from what is man-made. After living here in Tokyo for more than four years, I started to think about the Irish landscape again, but with a new perspective, and I re-visited this location in the North of Ireland again in February of this year. The natural formations seen here and their geometric appearance reminded me strongly of cityscape such as Tokyo. It is this connection that I wanted to make here.
Arnaud: Can you talk about this work (digital photo)? It is the only one in the series I don't quite understand.

Suzanne: With the other photos, I was interested in how viewers perceive this landscape. Historically, these natural formations have caused people to associate them with something man-made, when they are not. With this digital image, I was interested in seeing how a photo created by my own hand would be seen in relation to these landscape images. All the stone shapes and surfaces originate from the photo studies on the wall opposite. As you can see, the stone in the center has a slightly more regular shape while the other stones were manipulated to fit around it. Due to the selection of paper, the image appears to be natural like the other photos in the series. 

Arnaud: I'm interested to see what direction this work will take from now.

Suzanne: This is certainly a work I will be exploring in the future. In my next work, I intend to make a comparative study of the view seen from the top of Sky Tree with that seen from the top of Mt. Fuji, exploring the motivations people have for climbing both and our sense of connection with the landscape.
Tatsuhiko: Have you ever considered showing just close-ups of the rocks themselves rather than more panoramic shots?
Suzanne: Yes, I did give that consideration but I felt it important to give a context to the place shown here, and explore the human connection with it, hence this photo in which I appear in the distance.

Hiroko: The landscape you have chosen for these works has a very strong impact in and of itself. How did you overcome the difficulty of showing it as your own work in the context of the Youkobo gallery?

Suzanne: This is a very difficult problem, something I am still trying to resolve. This is part of the reason that I decided to include the individual basalt column studies in this exhibition, and why I started to explore ways of creating a new landscape through the digital image. 

participant: This digital photo is particularly interesting. There seem to be many avenues for exploration.

Vol24 「City Dwellers：Urbanites of Tokyo PJ6581 Part3」「Fading in」

Date　2013.9.22 　　16：00～ 

Exhibition Title（dates）："City　Dwellers：Urbanites　of Tokyo PJ6581 Part3"(2013.9.18-22)
Artists：Ade Putra Safe ＆ Khairullah Rahim

Exhibition Title（dates）： "Fading in”　(2013.9.7-29)
Artist： Dai Hijikata
Participants：Artists, Hiroko Murata, Tatsuhiko Murata, Yuri Kabata, Aya Murakami, Kaoru Murakami, Satoshi Ikeda

Moderator：Jaime Humphreys
Documentation： Yuri Kabata, Mika Harigai

Khai：Concept Outline

I attempt to visually reflect gay culture through my work. During my residency I have attempted to research certain hubs of the gay community such as Shinjuku 2-chome and Wadahori Park. I thought in Japan there was a greater understanding towards homosexuality than in Singapore but I find that in Tokyo its seems to be a hidden presence. There seems to be a stigma towards people who are gay, so there is a difficulty to express oneself directly.

Q＆A

Participant：Why did you select this kind of monster to appear in your work?

Khai：I used to watch all those monsters on TV when I was a child and so I selected the most popular from these. I use them as a motif to symbolize the stigmatization of gay culture but also draw them in a cute way.

Participant：As a result of your research what differences were you able to discern between Japan and Singapore’s gay culture?

Khai：Personally I felt that in Tokyo I had a greater pressure to hide the fact that I am gay.

Participant：How did you decide the size of the work? Was it a response to the exhibition space?

Khai：I didn’t really decided upon it before hand, I just developed it in conversation with Ade as we were sharing the space together. Actually we were originally thinking to turn the space into a maze.

Ade：Concept Outline

Through my work I attempt to express the confusion and dirt of the city. I suffer from OCD so actually I utilize this to enhance the visuals of the work. The work shown here was inspired by my experiences on the Tokyo trains, and I have used various flyers taken from stations to create collages which reflect a sense of urban confusion as seen from the moving train window. In the video installation I contrast scenes of deserted streets with the noise and confusion of the bustling city, while the tree sculpture is an exploration of the monumental images which we find in big cities.

Q＆A

Participant：Does your video of deserted areas of the city have any link with Khai’s work?

Ade: No not really.

Participant： Why is it that you chose to work with wood when tackling a subject of the concrete jungle of the city?

Ade：In order to bring emphasis to the theme and concept of the work I decided upon an opposing material. Expressing the accumulation of concrete buildings through the organic material of wood.

Hijikata：Concept Outline

The main piece in this exhibition is made from a kind of salt crystal, gradually becoming brighter over time, and this idea of “fading in”, gaining light is the main theme of all the work here.

Q＆A

Participant：You use extremely beautiful crystals in your work but at the same time this is interestingly contrasted with the cheap material of tinsel, do you have a particular reason behind this?

Hijikata： I decided to use tinsel as it recalls the memory of fun and joy within a particular community, and I wanted to communicate that image of the collective. I did not really consider it as a “cheap material”.

Participant：Is the black mat underneath also part of the work?

Hijikata：Although I did not originally intend it I think it has now become part of the work.

Participant：I don’t quite understand the relation between the photographs and the 3D works. (Indicating the set of two photographs and two wire sculptures covered in PVA in front of them)

Hijikata：They are both created without intention, something born from coincidence.

 (Photos include images of ice built up in the freezer, and the sculptures are created from discarded wire covered in PVA)

Participant： The use of these crystals brings a strong organic image but also has a suggestion of a darker side too…

Hijikata：The shape itself is quite disturbing, some strange unknown form. While the actual materials all have a particular positive association the overall shape itself as you say holds something uncomfortable. It is a misshapen circle as if a clay ring has been squashed to such a form. I decide the exact size at the time of installation. I also usually don’t intend to show the frame beneath the crystal and do nothing to control its color, this is naturally absorbed from the tinsel below.