Recent Exhibitions by Female Artists

An exhibition of OH Haji, a textile artist who received art education in Kyoto and sewing training in Seoul, Korea, is to be opened in Koganei Art Spot Chateau, Koganei City, Tokyo, from 14 to 29 June, 2014.

According to the caption on its poster, the exhibition was inspired by OH’s grandmother returning home to the Jeju Island in 1993 after so many years of having imagined about the island without even locating it on a map, and by OH herself visiting the island for the first time in 2004 to wear Korean costumes called “chima jeogori” of her mother and grandmother.

The installations including the costumes shown in the leaflet of the exhibition below will be exhibited.  A workshop to “unravel and undo the knots” will also be held on Sunday, June 22, in the same venue.  It is organized as part of a series of workshops initiated in Western Japan as Breaker Project activities, suggesting OH’s own way to retrace memories in pursuit of untold memories or memories beyond verbal description.

Participants of the workshop in Koganei are requested to bring in old knit wears to be unknitted and encouraged to tell their individual stories about the wears while unknitting them into balls of yarns.

MIYARA Eiko’s exhibition “Okinawa - With Love and Peace” is underway in Maruki Gallery for the Hiroshima Panels, Matsuyama City, Saitama Prefecture. 

The artist MIYARA was born in Fukuoka Prefecture, Kyushu, and started her artistic career in Tokyo in 1958.

Since she moved to Okinawa to live with her Okinawan husband in 1971, just before the islands’ administration was returned to Japan, she has been painting the oppressed and wretched, especially women, in Okinawa, Vietnam and other parts of Asia.

Maruki Gallery is holding her exhibition with moral and financial support from many people in order to remind the historical and social issues and to raise consciousness about the structural problems Okinawa is suffering as is represented by the US military bases.

The exhibition is scheduled to continue until July 12, 2014.

Translated and adapted by FUKUOKA A.A.

from Japanese website:

http://wan.or.jp/art/?cat=2

Chernobyl Children’s Fund Made a 2014 Benefit Calendar for Children in Chernobyl and Fukushima

Photo by Ryuichi Hirokawa

The 2014 Calendar for Children in Chernobyl and Fukushima (28th Anniversary) consists of pictures of children in Chernobyl and Fukushima who are spending time at sanatoriums. The following photo for the month of March shows children from Fukushima who are playing energetically with their hands and feet in the sand without caring about radiation. Some of them were born after March 11, so it is the first time for them to enjoy the ocean.

The Chernobyl Children’s Fund has supported the people in the devastated area of Chernobyl since 1991, and it has made a charity calendar every year since 1996. After the nuclear accident at Fukushima on March 11, 2011, the foundation received many responses from people in Chernobyl, well-wishing the children in Japan. The 2013 and 2014 Calendar for Children in Chernobyl include pictures and poems written by children in Chernobyl and Fukushima.

Besides the calendar, the Funds also sells postcards, books and so on. The proceeds are used for medical and relief expenses for children.

Price: 1000 yen

Mailing Cost: 100 yen (up to 2 copies)

             Actual price (3 to 9 copies)

             Free shipping (more than 10 copies)

Payment: Postal Transfer 
                   (Name of the Account) Chernobyl Children's Fund, Japan
                   (Postal Transfer Number) 00160-4-98316 (Transfer in Japan)


☆The Chernobyl Children Fund☆
Fouder/Adviser　HIROKAWA Ryuichi
Email: cherno1986@tokyo.email.ne.jp
URL: http://homepage2.nifty.com/chernobyl_children/index-e.html
Office: 207 Maison de Hara, 25 Shirogane-cho, Shinjuku-ku,
            Tokyo 162-0816 Japan
Tel /Fax: 81-3-5228-2680

☆HIROKAWA Ryuichi Photo Exhibition Office☆
Since April 1991 photo exhibitions have been held at more than 700 different places in Japan. From May 1997 pictures drawn by Chernobyl children are also lent out for exhibitions. (From the Fund's website)


Original Article on the WAN Website (November 26, 2013)
Translated and Adapted by Naoko Uchibori

"Imposing Words": Embroideries by Ruri Clarkson

Needlework has long been perceived as women's work. "Imposing Words: Contemporary Family Matters" by Ruri Clarkson exhibits embroidery works that sew together contemporary women's voices. The exhibition takes place from March 14 to 20, 2013, at Nidi Gallery (free admission). 

(C) Ruri Clarkson 2013

From Press Release:

Ruri Clarkson will present her new work “IMPOSING WORDS: Contemporary family matters” at Nidi gallery.  Her exhibition will highlight discordant keywords of contemporary Japanese family by using embroidery, a method closely associated with women. 「負け犬」 （makeinu）, which literally translates to “loser dog” but refers to single woman without partner, and 「婚活」 (konkatsu), which means marriage hunt, are just few of the words that get passed around by the media to spotlight the shift in domestic structure in contemporary Japan.  These words impose themselves on Japanese women with their overloaded meanings, blurring the separation between the “ideal self” in the eyes of society and the “true self” which is unaffected by society.

Adorning each imposing words with wordplay inspired motifs, by the task of sewing, Clarkson examines and questions the usage of these words and their impact on women’s lives.  The venue will be set up as a “home”, with laundry lines running from wall to wall with artworks hanging from them.  In this “home” the audience are invited to feel the doily shaped artworks with their hands to readjust the distance they have between the imposing word and themselves.

Information 

Venue:       Nidi gallery, Tokyo Shibuya-ku Sakuragaokacho 9-17  TOC3 Suite 408 

Hours:       12:00-20:00 

Workshop: Embroidering handkerchief      Sunday  March 17th  All day 

* [WHY WHY WHY] zine (limited 500 print) and Imposing Words badges will be on sale. 

* Samples of Clarkson’s illustration works and fashion works will be shown at the venue. 

 

Biography

Ruri Clarkson is a nomad, nurtured by 4 countries.  In 2009 she started creating artworks which led to illustrating for clients, as well as exhibiting in galleries and alternative spaces in Tokyo and Hong Kong.  In 2011, Home a zine masquerading as a “guide” to homemaking, was featured in Tokyo Art Book fair’s Feminine artist's publication.  In WHY WHY WHY, her recent zine, she expands her work to include manga, photography and writing, venturing into multidisciplinary communication with her audience.  Ruri is a student at AIT(Arts Initiative Tokyo) and a graduate of Department of Environmental Information at Keio University. Winner of 2012 Isetan WAM award, 2011 The Choice award. 

See also: http://ruri.node808.net/#

Original Article on WAN Website (March 2, 2013)

Posted by Aya Kitamura

Kusama’s Body Festival in 60s

An art exhibit named Kusama’s Body Festival in 60’s, which features the artist Yayoi Kusama's works in that decade, is being held in Tokyo.

o August 6, 2011 (Sat.) - November 27, 2011 (Sun.)
o The Watari Museum of Contemporary Art
o 3-7-6 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
o Tel: 03-3402-3001

The exhibit website: http://www.watarium.co.jp/exhibition/1108kusama/index.html (in Japanese only)

The artist's official website has an extensive English section: http://www.yayoi-kusama.jp/e/information/index.html

Original Article on the WAN website (October 6, 2011)

Translated and adapted by Naoko Hirose

ART: The Donation of Vegetable for the Pregnant Woman in Fukushima

Mikako Tomotari, a sculptor in Kyushu, began a project, "The Donation of Vegetables for Pregnant Women in Fukushima." This sustainable project for disaster relief is designed to deliver fresh vegetables to pregnant women in the areas affected by the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plants. It is a system in which people purchase "donation cards" to donate money for purchasing and delivering fresh vegetables from Kyushu, which pregnant women in Fukushima can eat without worrying about the possible effects of radiation from the areas close to the power plants.  

Through her work, Tomotari (an assistant professor in the Department of Design at Kyushu University) has been working on themes of the environment, disability, the body, community, and violence of the nation.

Website for Donation of Vegetables for Pregnant Women in Fukushima (Japanese)

http://www.design.kyushu-u.ac.jp/~tomotari/fukuoka.elf.html   

Mikako Tomotari's website (Japanese) 

http://www.design.kyushu-u.ac.jp/~tomotari/frame.html
 

Original Article written by Megumi Kitahara on the WAN website (May 1, 2011)
Translated and adapted by Eiko Saeki