TRANS 2014

TRANS / video installation / industrial mino washi paper, archive picture (1917), HD video 1’28” (2014), overhead projector, digital projector / size variable / 2014

This 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. The experimental works aspire to discover the material the nature and the tradition built upon it. 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 sad: “ Without human transmission, there is no tradition” . Therefore in order to keep knowledge we have to interact with it. My interactive works are inviting the visitors to explore mino washi paper from a new point of view.

I created an interactive work, a two side projection, where the visitors recolor an old picture of the riverside of Mino city. Throw the participation the visitors became active part of the work, and in philosophical dimension,: being active is the key of keeping the tradition.          

 *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