CONNECTION

CONNECTION / mino washi paper (handmade by the artist), plexi glass, LED light / light 

box / 150x300x300mm / 2014

The work created during the MINO-AIR artist in residence program in Mino city. Since the early eight century, the area of Mino has been one of the most famous paper production places in Japan. During the residency I used locally produced paper and learned traditional techniques to create my installation exhibited in the Mino-Washi Museum.

I approach mino washi paper from the direction of science and technology. My aim is to engage tradition with our daily life, and to seek the ways to maintain it for the future. As the Japanese philosopher Miki Kiyoshi (1897-1945) sad:  “Tradition is something that is actively made to live in the present, and such present activity always involves a relation with the future: it is through human action that tradition from the past is linked to the present and to the future.” *

The light box created using traditional paper cutting technique and handmade mino washi paper (I made during a workshop in the Mino-Washi Museum). The image shows the Shinkansen bullet train navigating board. The work searches for connections between the tradition and the future by combining traditional technique and material, with the latest technology.

 * On tradition by Miki Kiyoshi, published in the journal Chisei (intelligence), January 1940, MKZ XIV , Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1968, pp. 307. Trans. By A. Jacinto Zavala.

MINO AIR - Paper Art Village Project 2014 / Mino City, Gifu Prefecture / JP

Photo by Fumiko Otsuka