Travelling Japan on a JR rail pass with Millie, John, Tom and we met up with Shelly on her work placement in Kanazawa. We have seen some cool things, met some nice people. Japan is such a varied place.
Travelling to a tropical island to the south of Kagoshima, called Yakashima. Its famous for its thousands of years old cedar trees but we never got around to seeing them...
Hiroshima Peace Memorial. Many origami cranes that make up a peace message.
We visited many huge cities like Osaka and Fukuoka. They were all pretty lively with street kitchens at nights and music.
Shikoku- Iya valley where we climbed over an old vine bridge and checked out the waterfalls in the national park.
Kyoto Gion Matsuri Festival. "This festival originated as part of a purification ritual (goryo-e) to appease the gods thought to cause fire, floods and earthquakes."
Sea turtle nesting ground on Yakashima. We missed out on seeing them lay eggs at night, you have to reserve a place to see them. unfair!
We arrived on Naoshima Art Project Island just before a typhoon. Bugger so we were pretty much trapped in our hostel (a shipping crate) until it died down after two days and we got a ferry straight off! http://www.benesse-artsite.jp/en/about/
Of course we had to see the Pokamon centre in Osaka and saw it on tv in our hotel. Bring it back to english channels!!!
Goodbye EXCHANGE EXHIBITION: an origami crane being exchanged for an EXCHANGE ZINE.
All that is left from the exchange installation now are a few EXCHANGE ZINES and the objects that were traded like origami, flowers, eggplants, mirrors, hats, bows and drawings. The video archive of the exhibition can be seen at www.lucindaabel.tumblr.com
Goodbye Hirano, our lovely landlady: we went to a near town called Inyama and saw the oldest wooden castle in Japan, ate some eel, looked at tea ceremony puppets, saw the oldest road that links osaka to hokkaido, then checked out a fertility shrine where there were penis's everywhere, even shaped rocks.
Bye nagoya: making some last stops for crazy snacks at the health bank, philipino food store and we checked out a swimming pool, realised it was for kids but heyho still went down the slides and did the on the hour kids workout routine that everyone was doing....
Bye Uni: Millies Printmaking course put on a doo for us, we got the date wrong and had a knock at our apartment door to tell us we were hours late for the party, oopsy! English biscuits, squid balls, presents, party hats galore!
Goodbye EXCHANGE EXHIBITION: an origami crane being exchanged for an EXCHANGE ZINE.
All that is left from the exchange installation now are a few EXCHANGE ZINES and the objects that were traded like origami, flowers, eggplants, mirrors, hats, bows and drawings.
People viewing the exhibition
'Exchange Online Narrative' 'From England to Japan' and 'EXCHANGE ZINE'
Private Preview: We gave our presentations in Japanese, ate scones and were merry!
"I am interested in creating empowering shared experiences with people through creating installations that discuss ephemerality; brief moments in time. This work is a presentation of the 'Exchange Zine' which is a collaborative magazine project exchanging artworks from student artists at Brighton University, other English Universities and Nagoya University of Arts. There are submissions from people who have come to the Nagoya University Of Art in previous years too. Anyone can view the magazines but if they want to keep a copy they have to contribute to the exchange installation by undoing the bow that wraps the magazine, taking the magazine and tying an object of theirs in the magazines place. A further exploration into the theme of exchange and ephemerality. This second work is called 'Exchange Online Narrative'. This piece is a live video of the gallery that is uploaded to the internet for a wider audience to appreciate, view and comment on the artwork. Please go online and comment on the work in the Gallery at www.livestream.com/exchangenarrative .This last work is called 'England to Japan' and is a series of slides and transparent documentary photographs of my travels in Japan and my home in Brighton and Norfolk. I made the lightbox to explore the beauty of light and to create a sensory emerged engagement between the site and the audience.Thank you to everyone who helped and contributed to make these projects."
If you would like a copy of the EXCHANGE ZINE email me at swingin_sista@hotmail.com
