Volume 11
Currently sending postcards to herself and contemplating a project involving invisible things, Eri was last seen planning how to use a smell as her contribution to the sketchbook.
Volume 15
On a sunny but cold Sunday, we travelled to Moriya to find out more about the Arcus project.
We had a look around the buildings and then a chat with the programme director. After that we met artist in residence Goh Ideta who was kind enough to spend time showing us his portfolio and talking about his works.
His profile on the Arcus website sums his work up pretty succinctly
Works with experimental devices that utilizes light, shadow, and space to understand “perception,”“sensation,” and “existence.”
or you can check out his website here, but I get the feeling these are works you have to spend time inside to really do them any justice.
Volume 19
Googling for “artist led projects, tokyo” eventually led me to Kandada. Their website is in Japanese (of course!), but armed with their English language map and this blog entry giving an interesting snippet of background information, I went to have a look.
First up, I really liked the show they had on (Hong-Goo Kang ‘s Road to Eouido), but then I’m probably a bit partial to journey projects at the moment…
Secondly, completely getting into the spirit of passing the sketchbooks on to other artists (!), the director volunteered staff member Ueno Masao to participate on Kandada’s behalf.
Welcome aboard Masao!
Volume 21
Volume 21 gets posted to Kyushu where the first page might have something to do with clay, something to do with computers or something to do with something completely different…
Volume 9
Surrounded by artists’ books of all shapes, sizes and types, Pepper’s Project not only agreed to take part in the project, but also completed their page there and then!
Yamanote days
I have now embarked on a tour of Tokyo.
My guide is a map from the back of a gallery postcard, with all the labels surgically removed.
My starting point is every station on the Yamanote railway line.
I’ve been doing it for 2 days now, and I’m halfway round. I don’t know where the map will take me, but there’s always something interesting to be found at the other end…
Update: this became the Sites of Potentiality: Yamanote Line project.
City Canal Tour
Having excused myself early from the last segment of Johnny Hillwalker’s walking tour of Kyoto, I made a (not so) quick dash over to the Shimogamo Shrine to meet artist Markuz Wernli Saitô.
The last time we’d met was on the Kamo Obashi bridge when, having randomly followed a link from this article, and discovering the momentarium website I thought it would be great to invite Markuz to be a starting point for the Peer-to-Peer Sketchbooks project.
This time, however, was to be much more involved…
Wednesdays in Markuz’s programme are city canal tour days where “surprises and wet feet are guaranteed”. Well, I certainly got both, starting with performing the opening ceremony!
A condensed version of the tour can be viewed here http://momentarium.org/service/popup/1025.html (Quicktime format), but the actual event lasted about 2 hours.
It was fascinating to peer into people’s gardens from what was effectively ground level, and there were some nice little discoveries within the limbo territory of the canal itself: sights, sounds and smells.
Mostly the people we saw did a double-take but recovered enough to give us a friendly “konnichiwa” or “kombanwa”. There were a few quality encounters though, such as the woman throwing food across the canal and two fences to a dog in a garden on the other side, and The Guy in the Red T-Shirt.
I didn’t catch his name, but he just sort of appeared alongside the canal on his bike. After a brief introductory chat with Markuz, he left his bike propped up at the side and came down to join us. …but only for a few seconds before he started sprinting down the canal path!
He reappeared some time later completely out of breath and stopped to chat some more. We saw him a few more times after that as he cycled over various bridges and gave us a friendly wave. I wonder if he ever got back in touch with Markuz later by email?
I’m very much intrigued by how encounters like this can be documented. I was repeatedly amazed by the fact that, in Japan, Markuz has been able to leave his video camera set up on a tripod on the other side of busy bridges and in railway stations etc unattended and without fear that it would get stolen. How would you manage this in the UK or elsewhere? Some sort of hidden camera? An entourage of beefy cameramen?
Is there some other way of documenting the process besides video? Does the record need to be visual and time-based?
Maybe a more comforting way to regard my dozens of mosquito bites is as some form of alternative documentary record…
a week in Kumamoto
click on images for lager versions…
Exodus of obasan from the jinja:
A stroll around the park:
The biggest koi carp you have ever seen:
A 400 year old castle complete with concrete stairs and air conditioning throughout:
Collecting fresh spring water:
…and fresh fruit:
Weather forecasting courtesy of 4-stick mountain:
Relaxing walks around the village (mosquitoes not withstanding):
Random foodstuffs:
An early morning drive to see Aso-san:
And the volcano up close:
A Noh performance in front of the floodlit castle:
Former residence of Hosokawa Gyobu (and when the current owners are finished with it, I’ll have it!)
Many thanks to everyone in the zoo for their hospitality:
Volume 17
This week I was due to meet up with a friend in Kyoto on Saturday, but I altered my plans so I could meet up with momentarium Markuz Wernli Saitô.
This involved arriving a day early and spending the night in a youth hostel… and then oversleeping the next morning, trekking back to the station, faffing around trying to find a locker big enough for my bags, trekking to a different station and then arriving at Kamo Obashi Bridge 10 minutes after the scheduled bridge-sit was supposed to end.
Fortunately there was something of a crowd there and so I was still able to meet Markuz to invite him to take part in the project.
Hopefully I will make it back to Kyoto next week to properly take part in one of the activities.