I stayed and worked in Awashima, one of Setouchi islands through Awashima AIR 2013 spring program. In the project called 'Another tale of Awashima', I interviewed local residents and walked around the island. Their memories of nature, life culture and history became inspiration sources for my creating new work.
During interviews, there were special moments. While listening to what an interviewee was telling me, his/her words or description of a scene would transform lively into a new image in my head.
By taking such inspirational moments as a starting point, collected memories, in forms of old stories, songs, archival documents and both archival and private photographs, were mapped into a poetic collage accompanied with playful language. In this process I deconstructed the contextual meanings of memories and re-arranged fragments of them into another imaginary tale.
Among many materials I had collected, hand made picture book series from the late Toshiaki Ueda left me a strong impression. That is why some of the characters from his drawings appear here and there in my work produced on this island. |
My works were build up in the space of the old shrine called 'Hamano Oinarisan'. As the number of population on the island declines, the number of empty houses rises. 'An empty shrine' struck me as a symbolic appearance which mirrors the current depopulation of the community. 'Even god has moved out!' I thought when I first encountered this old shrine. Not a pessimistic thought at all, but a fantastic one. 'How does the god who moved out remember the memories of the island?' ' What would happen if I free those memories into the space?'
This quite deteriorated looking building, in fact a private storage, was repaired with care for the art festival, to the state in which the shrine can stand firmly for coming fifteen years at least. Now the small current 'Hamano Oinarisan' shrine is standing behind the old one.
In this space, I have placed my work 'Hamano Oinarisan A pine wood tale' and presented in The Setouchi Triennnale 2013 together with works from other artists.
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