The Road to (and from) the Museum at the Chigasaki City Museum of Art
Curated by Haruka Fujikawa
Featuring Ryosuke Hara, Tomohiro Harada, Arthur Huang, Kaori Inaba, Junichi Kanebako, and MATHRAX
July 14 –September 1, 2019

「茅ヶ崎散歩記憶と記憶細胞」本作は三部構成です。第一部は、ガラスケース内に茅ケ崎の3Dマップを作ります。アクリルディスクと150以上の球体に、茅ヶ崎の散歩記憶が描かれています。第二部は、茅ケ崎コミュニティ記憶地図です。様々な素材を使い、来館者が自分の散歩の記憶を残していく参加型のプロジェクトです。第3部は、アーティスト平尾菜美氏とのコラボレーションです。私のフィールドワークやその方法論を観察してきた平尾氏自身の観察記録を展示します。

写真:香川賢志

Combining fieldwork projects engaging all the senses during walks around Chigasaki with artworks from the museum’s collection.

For my fieldwork, I was paired with wheelchair user Maito Wakui and we walked from the Chigasaki City Art Museum to Chigasaki Southern Beach to Chigasaki Station and back to the museum. While walking and talking with Wakui, she quickly noted our height difference and how that affected our perspective during our walks. I walked a bit with her at her perspective and realized that I was missing out on so much. In subsequent fieldwork visits, I made an effort to look all around me from the ground to the sky.

Wakui and I met again last October when she visited me at a group exhibition in Ishikawacho where we had a chance to walk and talk some more. We have been in regular contact to arrange another walk together in the Chigasaki area, but due to scheduling and timing, we have not been able to take another walk together yet.

After the fieldwork, I wanted the theme of my work to focus on what I see along the walks to and from the Chigasaki City Art Museum. I have visited Chigasaki 16 times since 2018 to explore and learn all the different ways to get to the museum and to wander around Chigasaki. During these visits, I worked to discover new sights that we might not normally notice if we just think about getting to the museum. My installation hopes to capture the essence of my fieldwork and all the wonderful discoveries that can be made while on the way to the museum, and for that matter, on the way to anywhere.

”Chigasaki Memory Walks and Cells” has three parts. The first part is located in the glass case which is transformed into a three-dimensional map of Chigasaki. The work consists of “Memory Walks Drawings” from my Chigasaki fieldwork on acrylic discs hung inside the glass case. Each disc represents one day of walks drawn from memory based on my departure points. On the floor of the glass case, there are over 150 “Memory Walks Drawings” on styrofoam balls for all the days I visited art museums and/or galleries since 2018 laid out as a path going from Chigasaki Station to the museum and then to Chigasaki Southern Beach. And finally, on the back wall inside the glass case, there are over 200 “Chigasaki Memory Cells” which are created from photographs from the my fieldwork visits and placed in the approximate location they were taken based on my memory.

The second component is a three-dimensional Community Chigasaki Memory Map which I have created a framework with various materials and colors to represent the walks to and from the museum. The Community Chigasaki Memory Map is a participatory project where I invite museum visitors to add their own memories of their walks to and from the museum using the various materials provided in the exhibition space.

The third and final component is a collaboration with artist Nami Hirao whose studio practice also explores the everyday. She has followed and observed my fieldwork in Chigasaki and will be providing an outside perspective on my studio practice as it relates to “The Road to (and From) the Museum” by sharing her observations, thoughts and explanation about my fieldwork and studio methodology.