IHJ Art Programs/ Concerts 2016

[IHJ Artists’ Forum]
Alex Dodge – Open Studio

• Date: Monday, December 26, 2016, 3:00 – 9:00 pm
• Venue: Hillside Terrace E-LOBBY (29−8, Sarugaku-cho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo)
• Artist: Alex Dodge (Visual Artist; US-Japan Creative Artists Program Fellow)
• Co-sponsored by the Japan-US Friendship Commission (JUSFC)
• Admission: Free (NO reservations required)

Alex Dodge (2014) Functional Models of Self Realization (sammai-gumi) cedar, 18 x 24 x 20 inches

During Alex Dodge’s fellowship in Japan he has spent the past two months working in his studio in Tokyo while also working with traditional Japanese carpenters throughout Japan. This open studio will showcase new paintings and sculpture that he has created during his time here.

Bio: Alex Dodge lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Dodge’s studio practice has consistently explored the promise of technology as it interacts with and shapes human experience. His work is deftly located between new media and traditional fine art disciplines including painting, printmaking, and sculpture. His work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. He holds degrees from the Rhode Island School of Design (BFA Painting) and New York University, Interactive Telecommunication Program (MPS).

• Artist’s website: alexdodge.com

[IHJ Artists’ Forum/Artist Talk]
Noise to Signal

• Date: Thursday, December 8, 2016, 7:00 pm
• Venue: Lecture Hall, International House of Japan
• Artist: Alex Dodge (Visual Artist; US-Japan Creative Artists Program Fellow)
• Language: English (with consecutive interpretation)
• Co-sponsored by the Japan-US Friendship Commission (JUSFC)
• Admission: Free (reservations required)

In this artist talk, visual artist Alex Dodge will address the complexity of creating a physical art object in the age of digital networks and how evolving technologies continue to reshape the role of the artist as cultural agent. Beginning with the question, “How can we create something that we cannot imagine?,” Dodge will guide us through his work and his personal journey through information theory, philosophy, computer code, linguistics, and Japanese culture.

Bio: Alex Dodge lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Dodge’s studio practice has consistently explored the promise of technology as it interacts with and shapes human experience. His work is deftly located between new media and traditional fine art disciplines including painting, printmaking, and sculpture. His work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. He holds degrees from the Rhode Island School of Design (BFA Painting) and New York University, Interactive Telecommunication Program (MPS).

• Artist’s website: alexdodge.com

[IHJ Artists’ Forum/Workshop]
But Is It Art?

• Date: Friday, September 30, 2016, 7:00 pm
• Venue: Lecture Hall, International House of Japan
• Artist: marksearch [Sue Mark & Bruce Douglas] (Interdisciplinary artists; US-Japan Creative Artists Program Fellows)
• Guest Artist: Nakamori Akane （Suisei-Art, Kanazawa）
• Language: English & Japanese (with consecutive interpretation)
• Co-sponsored by the Japan-US Friendship Commission (JUSFC)
• Admission: Free (reservations required) 
• *This workshop is open to a maximum of 15 participants with past experiences or an active interest in community-based art initiatives.
• *Participants are welcome to bring and share materials or stories from their own experiences in community-based work. It can be physical, such as a small object, tool or artifact used in the project, a visual such as a photo, drawing, or diagram, or it can be intangible, such as a short story that describes an important experience from the project.
• *Artists’ Talk on September 29.

As socially engaged artists shift away from working in the known spaces of museums and galleries, many interesting challenges arise. Creating positive experiences for non-traditional art audiences requires new approaches and sensitive communication. California-based cultural researcher team marksearch (Sue Mark & Bruce Douglas) has worked collaboratively and extensively with communities in the US and other countries, and in this dynamic workshop with Nakamori Akane, will unpack the process of creating a socially engaged experimental project in a small, historic Kanazawa neighborhood. The workshop will include opportunities for participants to share their experiences and insights in the growing field of community-based art practices.
Some themes to be explored include:

• Artists’ responsibilities to develop sensitive works in a community
that is not their own
• Development of healthy relationships with institutional partners
• Strategies for accessible communication with local residents
• Ways to measure success

Profile: marksearch (Sue Mark & Bruce Douglas) engages people in collaborative expressions of local history to expose and deepen bonds between people and their environments. Through cross-disciplinary projects, they create temporary and permanent sculptural structures for improvisational collaboration in public spaces. On-the-street interactions offer people an opportunity to create a lasting neighborhood narrative that connects local history with the lived experience of a particular place.

• Artist’s website: marksearch.org
• tracings-jp.org
• air21kanazawafringe.com

[IHJ Artists’ Forum/Artist Talk]
Tracings and Findings

• Date: Thursday, September 29, 2016, 7:00 pm
• Venue: Iwasaki Koyata Memorial Hall, International House of Japan
• Artist: marksearch [Sue Mark & Bruce Douglas] (Interdisciplinary artists; US-Japan Creative Artists Program Fellows)
• Moderator: Hayashi Akio (Managing Director, inVisible)
• Language: English & Japanese (with consecutive interpretation)
• Co-sponsored by the Japan-US Friendship Commission (JUSFC)
• Admission: Free (reservations required) 
• *Additional Workshop on September 30!

Who holds the containers for social memories?
How is traditional knowledge passed through generations?
What ways can tradition move through healthy transformations as communities change?
Join a visual discussion to learn about cultural research team marksearch’s exploration of these big questions. As unconventional tourists, marksearch has been learning about ritual, traditional craft, and daily life practices as well as visiting generations’ old trade shops, historic reenactment villages, and living museums in urban and rural Japan. While in residence at Sanki Bunko, marksearch has been exploring various methods of cultural preservation in Kanazawa. They are interested in understanding the process of machiya renovation: who decides to live in these historic homes, which architects specialize in their detailed renovation, what kinds of craftspeople and carpenters are needed in the reconstruction process and what municipal public policies are in place to encourage saving these historic homes. They will connect their current research in Japan with their previous projects in the US and other countries. Hayashi Akio, director of art festivals in various regions of Japan including the Beppu Contemporary Art Festival and Tottori Geijū-sai, will join the conversation.

Profile: marksearch (Sue Mark & Bruce Douglas) engages people in collaborative expressions of local history to expose and deepen bonds between people and their environments. Through cross-disciplinary projects, they create temporary and permanent sculptural structures for improvisational collaboration in public spaces. On-the-street interactions offer people an opportunity to create a lasting neighborhood narrative that connects local history with the lived experience of a particular place.

• Artist’s website: marksearch.org
• tracings-jp.org
• air21kanazawafringe.com

[IHJ Artists’ Forum/Poetry and Vocal Performance]
Tuna Melt and Other Sonic Fables

• *This event has finished.
• Date: Thursday, July 7, 2016, 7:00 pm
• Venue: Iwasaki Koyata Memorial Hall, International House of Japan
• Artist: LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs (Interdisciplinary poet; US-Japan Creative Artists Program Fellow)
• Language: English (with consecutive interpretation; original texts will be provided.)
• Co-sponsored by the Japan-US Friendship Commission (JUSFC)
• Admission: Free (reservations required)

LaTasha Nevada Diggs is the erudite daredevil poet, provoking the body to move as she moves the mind, allowing us, through her soundscapes and hybrid canvases, the privilege of hearing the solar system spin. —2016 Whiting Award Citation

Poet, vocalist, and sound artist LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs presents a selection from her acclaimed debut book, TwERK, new performance-based works, and a taste of flash non-fiction. While Diggs᾽ poetry can be traced to the Black Arts Movement from the 1960s, her contemporary use of language as a source of cultural expression is developed through the polyphonic splicing of global and local lexicons, involving Tagalog, Japanese, Spanish, Black English, Cherokee, and Quechua. This cosmopolitan engagement with language connects her work to the avant-garde as well as the “street” aesthetics of hip hop music and spoken word performance. Please join Diggs and her special guests (TBA)-and come with all of your six senses open and ready!

• Artist’s website: http://latashadiggs.tumblr.com/

[IHJ Artists’ Forum/Workshop]
Filigree Pattern: Collaborative Workshop with Piper Shepard

• Date: Wednesday, June 8, 2016, 10:00 am – 8:00 pm
• Venue: Seminar Room 404, International House of Japan
• Instructor: Piper Shepard (Textile Artist; US-Japan Creative Artists Program Fellow)
• Language: English (with consecutive interpretation)
• Ages: 18 and up
• Co-sponsored by the Japan-US Friendship Commission (JUSFC)
• Admission: Free (reservations required)
• Artist talk on Tuesday June 7. 

In this workshop, we will make hand cut patterns based on individual and collective contributions of all participants. Here, the sum of the parts is greater than one individual. Based on the idea of the Exquisite Corpse, each person will create a drawing or pattern. These patterns are linked together by collaborating with your adjacent neighbors in a method of adjoining your work through drawing and discussion. Once merged and joined, the participants will decide on what will be positive and negative space in their artwork. From there, everyone will work to create an integrated cut pattern and collaborative work.

• • Please feel free to drop in as you like. It will take 2-3 hours to participate fully.

• • Please give us an estimate of when you plan to arrive, to ensure that there is enough space.

• • All materials and tools will be provided.

• We will be using precision knives to cut paper. We cannot take responsibility for any workshop-related injuries, so please take care when using the knives.

• Artist’s website: www.pipershepard.com/

[IHJ Artists’ Forum/Artist Talk]
The Textile Art of Piper Shepard

• Date: Tuesday, June 7, 2016, 7:00 pm
• Venue: Lecture Hall, International House of Japan
• Artist: Piper Shepard (Textile Artist; US-Japan Creative Artists Program Fellow)
• Language: English (with consecutive interpretation)
• Co-sponsored by the Japan-US Friendship Commission (JUSFC)
• Admission: Free (reservations required)
• Additional workshop on June 8! .

Shepard’s work is a refined process of cutting whole cloth into lace-like patterns, considering fabric in relation to history and memory. She will talk about her art in light of her study of pattern dyeing and paste resist in Japan.

Profile: Piper Shepard’s contemporary investigations of traditional textiles speak to the interconnected ways in which textiles represent culture. She has shown her work extensively in national and international venues, and her work can be found in collections such as the Baltimore Museum of Art and The Museum of Arts and Design, New York. Since 1994, she has taught in the Fiber Department at the Maryland Institute College of Art.

• Artist’s website: www.pipershepard.com/

Flier PDF

[IHJ Artists’ Forum] Work-in-Progress Screening and Discussion
Queer Japan Project

• *This event has finished. A report on this forum is available.
• Date: Tuesday, May 10, 2016, 7:00 pm
• Venue: Iwasaki Koyata Memorial Hall, International House of Japan
• Artists:
  Graham Kolbeins (Filmmaker; US-Japan Creative Artists Program Fellow)
  with Vivienne Sato (Artist, Film Critic, Drag Queen)
• Language: English & Japanese (with consecutive interpretation)
• Co-sponsored by the Japan-US Friendship Commission (JUSFC)
• Admission: Free (reservations required)

The Queer Japan Project features interviews with a range of people from Japan’s LGBTQ community—including activists, artists, politicians, and historians—resulting in a feature-length documentary, along with art exhibitions, a series of web videos, photography, and printed publications. Interviewed and filmed through the warm, insightful lens of Graham Kolbeins, a young, talented, and queer filmmaker based in Los Angeles, this documentary explores contemporary and historical manifestations of Japanese LGBTQ life and culture, at a moment of rapid change—last year, Shibuya ward in Tokyo became the first in Japan to issue certificates recognizing same-sex partnerships as equivalent to marriage. This program will feature film excerpts followed by a discussion with Kolbeins and guest, Vivienne Sato.

• Artist’s website:http://grahamkolbeins.com/

Featuring: Atsushi Matsuda, Gengoroh Tagame, Hiroshi Hasegawa, Masaki C. Matsumoto, Nogi Sumiko, Rokudenasiko, Vivienne Sato, and others

Flier PDF

Program Report

In his Artist’s Forum, Mr. Kolbeins showed footage that had been filmed since his arrival in Japan in April, including interviews with the manga artist Tagame Gengoroh; Hasegawa Hiroshi, founder of The Japanese Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (JaNP+) – the first of its kind in Japan; transgender activist Sugiyama Fumino; and Mitsuhashi Junko, a professor of sociology and culture specializing in transgender studies. The audience responded enthusiastically to the lucid, lyrical qualities of the film, which were unusual for a documentary and perhaps revealing of Mr. Kolbeins’s experience making narrative fictional film.

In the post-screening discussion, Mr. Kolbeins was joined by Vivienne Sato, an artist, film critic, and drag queen who also appears in the film, as well as Iida Hiromi (HIROMEDIA8), the producer of “Queer Japan Project,” who shared her perspective as an “ally” in discussing her participation in the project.

Mr. Kolbeins discussed his initial interest in Japan’s queer culture, as well as behind-the-scenes stories from filming at the Tokyo Rainbow Pride, and also addressed the persistence of Japan-specific double standards. For example, while queerness is acceptable in Kabuki and other traditional art forms, and a prominent drag queen might be perfectly welcome in the public sphere, many still feel the need to remain closeted from their own family members.

“The Queer Japan Project” will continue to document interviews in the Kansai and Tohoku regions, as well as Hokkaido and Okinawa, after which it will be edited into a complete film. There is high anticipation for a future screening of the completed film at the IHJ.

Queer Japan Project Website: queerjapanmovie.com