NOWHERE

Emerging Artist Series 02:

NOWHERE

Motoyuki Shitamichi
Mamoru
Tuan Mami

Opening: Fri 28 Oct, 6 pm
Exhibition: 29 Oct – 20 Nov 2011, 9.30 am – 6 pm
Japan Foundation Center for Cultural Exchange in Vietnam

Artist’s Talk: Fri 04 Nov 2011, 7 – 8.30 pm
Nhasan Studio

気がつかずに通り過ぎてゆく
ただ、いまここにあるもの

We pass by without knowing it,
and yet, there it is.

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Motoyuki Shitamichi

Born in 1978, works and lives in Tokyo, Japan
BA in Fine Art (Oil Painting), Musashino Art University, Japan
After his graduation, he researched and travelled all over Japan, and he photographed the series of landscapes with abandened buildings of war are. The original functions of those remains were lost after 60 years passed after war, however people have customized the buildings and facilities into house, flower gardens, zoo and so on. The works are published as a collection of photography Bunkers, little more, 2005. The other projects include “Sunday Painter” (2005-2010), in which he visits the owners of the hobby-like paintings drawn by his grandfather, and “A Concealed Landscape” (2010/the national museum of art, Osaka), in which he conducts a workshop to draw a map with letters, discovering tiny and small landmarks at street corners. His intention is to visualize unseen memories and values in rapidly changing landscapes through research and fieldwork may be originated in his childhood dream to be an archeologist. His works were exhibited in various places; “Fantomes” (2008/espase japon, Paris), “Torii” (2008/Puffin Room, N.Y.), “Sunday Painter” (2010 /Contemporary Art Center, Ibaraki), “Dusk/Dawn” (2011/Nap Gallery, Tokyo). Artist-in-residence programs in: Cite International des Arts (2007-2008/ Paris), Tokyo wonder site Aoyama (2010-2011/ Tokyo), Aomori Contemporary Art Center(2011-2012/ Aomori)

[connection]

Things, put on streets to cross the gaps. A wooden chip or a stone turns into something like a “bridge” when it is put there. I imagine that, in Hanoi, the people go back home by bike, crossing over these connections.
We live, being receptive to rapidly changing and growing cities and landscapes. I think, these “bridges” are the smallest unit of necessary things and one of the smallest deeds in such landscapes at hand.
As historically and worldly precious treasures are exhibited in museums, traces of the ordinary life in our neighborhood are lined up in my exhibition.
A photographer visualizes this existing world once again in his framework. I believe that it creates and produces another perspective at unknown, non-monumental street corners. This is how I want to relate myself to this world directly.