The exhibition “Igoku Tamaru: lives without boundaries” will be held in Tanabe City and Shirahama Town, Wakayama Prefecture, from 20 September to 29 September!
Kinan Art Week will hold an exhibition from the “Igoku Tamaru: lives without boundaries” exhibition and related events at several locations in Tanabe City and Shirahama Town, Wakayama Prefecture, for 10 days from 20 September (Fri) to 29 September (Sun), 2024.
▶ A number of artists from Japan and abroad will participate in the exhibition, key concept “slime mold” as a starting point. New works based on local research will also be presented.
▶ The ‘Main Exhibition’ area in Tanabe City, where several exhibitions are developed in a compact area that can be toured on foot.
▶ A ‘Collaborative project’ area in Shirahama Town, where visitors can enjoy exhibitions held at the same time by a variety of partners with connections to the past activities of the Kinan Art Week.
▶ A full range of related events, including film screenings and talk sessions related to the theme, food events and workshops related to the long-term art project “Commons Farm”.
【cooperation】
Date ：2024/9/20(Fri) – 9/29(Sun) 10 days
Time ：depend on venues
Venue：Kinan, Wakayama Prefecture (Tanabe City and Shirahama City)
▼Tanabe area (main exhibition)
Minakata Kumagusu Archive, SOUZOU, Breakfast Gallery (Atelier Mojike), vacant lots and spaces in Tanabe City, etc. (outdoors).
▼Shirahama area (colaborated exhbitions)
Minakata Kumagusu Museum, Adventure World, Kawakyu Museum, Sandanbeki Cave, Nongkrong (Hair Salon Shinju).
Organizer： Kinan Art Week Executive Committee
Grant ： Fukutake Foundation
Curation ：Production Zomia, Jun Igarashi
Artist：
▼Tanabe area (main exhibition)
Geert Mul, HIROSE Satoshi, YAMADA Shione, Kong Dara, KUROKI Yumi, KINEMURA Naoko, Taiki Sakpisit, Truong Cong Tung, Kanitha Tith, AWAYA, KUBO Hiroko
▼Shirahama area (collaborated exhibitions)
Khvay Samnang, Tita Salina, Lim Sokchanlina, Ngoc Nau, Mech Sereyrath&Mech Chuolay, YAMAUCHI Terue, MAEDA Kohei, Slime Mold Research Club
Support:
Adventure World, Kanase Inc, The Kiyo Bank, Ltd, Sandanbeki Cave, Kiyo Bank Shirahama Branch, Takagaki Komuten, Towa-Sou, Trafic Confort Inc, Hamada Inc, Morikawa Inc, YAMACHO Co., Ltd, Yabumoto Setsubi, Ryujin-Ume, KIMURA Kodai, TADA Noriko, TAMAKI Hisatsugu, Bar Oct
Cooperation：
Adventure World, Kawakyu Museum, Kitagawa Plum Garden, Kinokuma-za, Kirino-sato Takahara, K Type Chocolate Company, Colographical, Koyama Tomio Gallery, Nichido Contemporary Art, Shinju, SOUZOU, Towa-Sou, Tongari Farm, Nanki-Shirahama Airport, Breakfast Gallery, Mikan Society, Minakata Kumagusu Museum, Minakata Kumagusu Archives, Aura Contemporary Art Foundation, Artport, coamu creative
【Concept】
The main theme of the exhibition is ‘Igoku Tamaru: Lives without boudaries’.
This means ‘moving (Igoku), gathering (Tamaru) and Igoku (moving) again’ in the dialect of the Kinan region of Wakayama.
The slime mold was studied by the antholopologist Kumagusu Minakata, the pride of the Kinan region,
Sometimes slime molds move like animals, sometimes they gather like plants, and sometimes they spore and move to a new location.
In this way, slime molds adapt to their environment by constantly and dynamically changing their appearance.
The soil on which slime molds and plants are based on part of a large cycle, which is created by the intertwining of the remains of living organisms and micro-organisms.
We humans and the Earth have also moved, assembled and migrated over the course of our long history.
However, in this process, nations and peoples have been born, evolving and developing, while destruction has also occurred due to ideological and ethnic conflicts.
The current world of polarisation and intensifying territorial disputes is also in the process of change and migration, just like the world of slime molds.
If we see our world as being in a process of change and movement, like the world of slime molds, we can once again find the freedom that we human beings are capable of.
Kinan Art Week 2024 aims to discover, through artists’ works, workshops and other experiences, how we can live flexibly without staying in a certain place, a certain point of view or a certain set of values, just as slime mold and soil teach us how to do.
【Exhibition venues and Projects】
The exhibition will comprise a main exhibition centred on Tanabe City, Wakayama Prefecture, and a coordinated exhibition centred on Shirahama Town. A total of nine venues are scheduled to display works by approximately 20 artists.
□Venue：Minakata Kumagusu Archives
＜Theme＞『Slime Mold: Moving and Gathering』
Minakata Kumagusu is one of Japan’s leading intellectual giants born in Wakayama. Minakata Kumagsu Archive, which permanently preserves Kumagusu’s collection of books and documents and conducts research on Kumagusu, will exhibit works that resonate with the world of slime mold, which Kumagusu studied throughout his life. The video work by Geert Mul, in which what seems to be a natural object changes slowly and continuously, seems to evoke the movement of slime mold (even though the artist did not intend to do so). Hirose, who has been showing his work at the Kinan Art Week since 2022 and is also involved in the Commons Farm art project, has been working with Kumagusu since his stay in Tanabe. Hirose will exhibit works inspired by Kumagusu’s philosophy of “Suiten”, which he created during his stay in Tanabe. Yamada Shion will exhibit a video work in which the movements of a slime mold are traced using a human body.
Artist：Geert Mul live in Rotterdam
Artist：HIROSE Satoshi live in Milan
Artist：YAMADA Shione live in Iwate
□Venue：Breakfast Gallery
＜Theme＞『Shape keeps Changing』
By drawing away from the human time frame and conception of most events that we assume to be unchanging, we are reminded that they are also in a state of change.
The organic forms that appear in Kong Dara’s work evoke images of change and growth in life, but at the same time can be seen as an undifferentiated state that is not confined to an existing framework, or as indicating a third option.Yumi Kuroki works with citrus farmers in Tanabe City to create ceramic pieces by making glazes from the ashes of tangerine trees and waste materials. Naoko Kineimura, who grew up in the area and continues to be based in Tanabe, researches and creates artworks in the Domeki Gorge, which she visited as a child and where Kumagusu also frequented to observe and collect.
Artist：Kong Dara live in Phnom Penh
Artist：KUROKI Yumi live in Sendai
Artist：KINEMURA Naoko live in Tanabe
□Venue：SOUZOU
＜Theme＞『Resistance to stay』
SOUZOU / Former Iwabashi house will present works by artists from the Mekong area, which is currently undergoing rapid development. Taiki Sakpisit expresses the tensions of contemporary Thailand in his fantastical yet disturbing video works, while Truong Cong Tung presents a chaotic and realistic dream that is not merely beautiful and nostalgic. Kanita uses steel wire, a common sight in Cambodia, to create the forms of her works from intuitive hand movements. Their gaze does not look towards a glorious future, as everyone used to do during Japan’s period of rapid economic growth, but poetically expresses the lost nature and changing urban spaces that are now before our eyes. In the Nakaheji-based Awaya’s new work, sound art that captures the ethereal world of Kumano will be created in the garden of SOUZOU.
Artist：Taiki Sakpisit live in Bangkok
Artist：Truong Cong Tung live in Ho Chi Minh
Artist：Kanitha Tith live in Phnom Penh
Artist：AWAYA live in Nakahechi
□Venue：Outdoor ※pending
＜Theme＞Cross a boudary
This year’s Kinan Art Week extends into the city. Mobility is a continual crossing of territory.
It is a series of entering and leaving someone else’s land, and most of the places you can walk through belong to an individual, a country, etc.
But have you ever had the experience, for example, of standing in a place like a forest, where people do not usually set foot, and being confronted with the place, freed from its various attributes? Encountering expression and opening your senses may also free you from the fixed meaning of the place you are in.
Kineimura will exhibit the artworks she has drawn from her research in Dōnaruiki Gorge as if she were repositioning them in the town.
Hiroko Kubo, who uses everyday materials and sculptures based on research into prehistoric art, folk art and cultural anthropological theories, will also present her work after her research in Tanabe City.
Artist：KINEMURA Naoko live in Tanabe
Artist：KUBO Hiroko live in Chiba
□Kinan Art Residence vol.2
The Kinan Art Residence is a programme that invites artists from Japan and abroad to stay in the Kinan region, where they conduct research on the various cultures and histories of the region and develop artworks and art projects inspired by their research. In 2023, Tuan Mami was invited from Vietnam to join our residence program.
▼Artist
Geert Mul
KUROKI Yumi
【Cooperative Projects】
Many art projects have been implemented in Shirahama Town since our first event in 2021. This year’s event will develop collaborative projects and exhibitions together with partners with deep ties to Kinan Art Week.
□Exhibition venue： Kawakyu Museum
Duration: 2024/ 9/6 – 10/14
“Zomi: Trans-Local Migrant on the Water” Exhibition
An exhibition that weaves a “story of water” connected to Southeast Asia at the Kawakyu Museum.
Artists: Khvay Samnang (Cambodia), Tita Salina (Indonesia), Lim Sokchanlina, Ngoc Nau (Vietnam), Mech. Sreyrath & Mech Choulay（Cambodia）; Terue Yamauchi（Japan）
□Exhibition venue：Minakata Kumagusu Museum
Duration: 7/1-9/29 *Special extension for part of the exhibition until 9/29
“Minakata Kumagusu and Slime Mold Art” Exhibition
The exhibition will be held in conjunction with the Kinan Art Week from 23 September onwards, with some of the works being extended.
□Exhibition venue：nongkrong
Exhibition period: 9/20-10/20
“nongkrong – sowing seeds” Exhibition
Participatory contemporary art exhibition curated by Toshiki Ozaki at the alternative space ‘Nongkrong’ in front of JR Shirahama Station.
□Exhibition venue: Adventure World
Duration: 9/13 – 12/31 (planned)
“The Island of AWAI” Exhibition
An exhibition of new works created over two years by Maeda, who has close ties with Kinan Art Week, based on his research into Adventure World, including its zookeepers.
Artist: Kohei Maeda
□Exhibition venue: Sandanbeki Cave
Duration: permanent
”Breathing” Exhibition
A video work produced by Maeda based on his research into the Sandanbeki Cave and its surrounding environment is currently on display in the cave. The video, based on the theme of ‘fire’, is constantly changing in accordance with hourly natural environmental data (temperature, wind speed, wave height) and music in the area around Sandanbeki Cave.
Artist: Kohei Maeda
【Related Program】
Related talks and workshops will be held in connection with the exhibition. The following is a partial list of these events, details of which will be updated accordingly.
■Date: 28 August (Wednesday) Online talk session
Guest Speakers: Isao Sakai (Climate Change Activist), Naoko Kineimura (Artist)
Mr Sakai,who is active worldwide as a climate change activist, rethinks the view of nature through the eyes of micro-organisms, and Mr Kineimura, whose works include detailed natural history paintings and the “Hibi E” series of watercolour paintings of the ordinary things in life, Kinemura continues to depict the world from a modest point of view.
The two guests will talk about how they face the world through their respective practices, and how they look at the universal and the big picture from a small perspective.
■Date: 9/19 (Thu) “Igoku, Tamaru: Lives wihtout boudaries ” Opening talk
Guest Speaker: Yukiko Shikata (Curator/Critic), Moderator: Yuto Yabumoto (Kinan Art Week)
■Date: 9/23 Sep (Mon) “The Garden in Motion” film screening (planned)
Summary: Film screenings in line with the exhibition theme are held every year in cooperation with Kinokuma-za, which has extensive experience in organising screenings in Wakayama. This year, a documentary film on the world-renowned French gardener/novelist Gilles Clément will be screened.
■Date: 9/28 (Sat) “Journey of Clay Dumplings” Workshop
Artist：Satoshi Hirose
Venue: SOUZOU
Summary: Within the “Orange Collective” project, which has been ongoing since 2022, this long-term project aims to establish a “park-like farm”,
The project includes work Shop that appeal to the senses of touch and smell, visits to citrus farms and a foster system for seedlings,
The project is a participatory experience that makes use of the physical senses, together with Hirose and farmers.
■Date: 9/29 (Sun) “Chai Workshop (tentative)”
Artists: Rawanchaikul Mari, Satoshi Hirose
Summary: A follow-up to the Chai Workshop held at Kinan Art Week 2023,
This workshop will be held so that participants can experience new values while confronting their inner selves.
Lectures will be followed by a panel discussion with local guests.
【Venue】
【Tanabe area (main exhibition)】
■Minakata Kumagusu Archives
Address：36 Nakayashikicho, Tanabe City, Wakayama
■Breakfast Galery
Address：54-2 Nakayashikicho, Tanabe City, Wakayama
■SOUZOU
Address：70-1 Nakayashikicho, Tanabe City, Wakayama
【Shirahama area (colaborated exhbitions)】
■Kawakyu Museum
Address：3745, Shirahama-cho, Nishimuro-gun, Wakayama
■Minakata Kumagusu Museum
Address：3601-1 Shirahama-cho, Nishimuro-gun, Wakayama
■Nongkrong (Salon Shinju)
Address：1385-1, Katada, Shirahama-cho,Nishimuro-gun, Wakayama
■Adventure World
Address：2399 Katada, Shirahama-cho, Nishimuro-gun, Wakayama
■Sandanbeki Cave
Address：2927-52 Shirahama-cho, Nishimuro-gun, Wakayama