Oct 02 2017

Tsushima Art Fantasia 2017

by Stuart Munro

A detail from the fishing boat at the heart of MUTSUMI TOMOSADA’s installation Nothing Unsinkable Ship (2017), which was wedged firmly into the cramped confines of the Tsushima Art Center, one of the four venues of Tsushima Art Fantasia 2017. All images by Stuart Munro for ArtAsiaPacific.

Located halfway between the Korean Peninsula and Japanese mainland is Tsushima Island. The Japanese archipelago has long been a site of economic and military importance for Korea, China and Russia, and as such has seen both the coming together and clash of these different cultures over the course of its history. Today, with the islands’ younger generations moving to nearby Fukuoka and Nagasaki, Tsushima Art Fantasia is an attempt to establish the islands as sites that document cultural experimentation, reviving and expanding the local culture as it also responds to the pressures of tourism.

Ever since 2015, the event has been organized and co-curated by staff and students from Hiroshima University’s Art Department along with members of the local community. This year was no different.

The festival is spread between four venues (three of which are located in the town of Izuhara Port), including the shop window of Shinwa Bank, the Tsushima Art Center, a former snack bar once frequented by writer Ryōtarō Shiba and the former residence of Meiji-period writer Nakarai Tōsui. The other major venue, located in a disused school in the Hisada area and overlooking the Sea of Japan, is a short drive away through the southern island’s mountains.

Themes of communication and technology are unsurprising for an island with such a vibrant history, and where towns and villages remain detached, separated by mountains and forest terrain. Instead of simply connecting these together, however, the festival aimed to explore the locales for all their peculiarities in intimate detail rather than simply expose them for all to see.

MUSTUMI TOMOSADA’s Nothing Unsinkable Ship (2017) featured a small fishing boat squeezed into an upstairs room at the Tsushima Art Center. The room was lit with blue light. In the opposite room was the accompanying video, which shows the same boat at sea.

KAZUO YOSHIDA describes Territorial Sea / Table of Ingredients (2017), exhibited at the Tsushima Art Center, as a ‘liquid’ series. The work comprises water, which Yoshida collected each day from the nearby sea, mixed with the artist’s own urine. What emerged was a color chart that documents the artist’s time on the island.

KAZUO YOSHIDA also showed a photograph, titled The Fool’s Finger (2017). The image was shot on Tsushima but is part of a series, which began in Finland during the artist’s month-long residency just prior to Art Fantasia. In Finland, the artist took to examining the phenomenon of all-day sun known as midnight sun.

HWAYEON PARK’s Unseparated (2017) features a mass of flotsam and jetsam, brought together in an upstairs space at the Tsushima Art Center. Some of the debris was hung by fishing line from the ceiling, while others were left scattered across the floor.

Continuing on through Tsushima Art Center, visitors encountered BOAT ZHANG’s Reading Practice (for Japanese) (2017). Her work focuses on themes of daily routine using body, text, image and sound. The artist filmed herself facing away from the camera while, as the title suggests, reading out loud in Japanese. A graduate of Goldsmith’s college in London, she also has two other works at the former Hisada School site, titled W.e.l.c.o.m.e (2017) and Wished Tree (Not Yoko Ono’s) (2017).

DAISUKE KURODA’s Hanazono ni asobu mono / kurage no kaze (2017), shown at the former Hisada School site, recreated a child’s drawing of the school surrounded by a green landscape. Here he used wood, muslin, cement and a series of fans to recreate this drawing as an aquatic ecosystem. A very rough translation of the title would be “Playing in the Garden / Wind Jellyfish.”

Myth and legend collide with TADASU YAMAMOTO’s Nani mo saegiru mono no nai basho #4 (2017). Yamamoto’s photographs are known for their intense detail. In this work, he captures the enormity of the Tsushima woodland as well as stone mounds purported to be ancient burial sites.

Another photo by TADASU YAMAMOTO, titled Uni Island (2017), captures the once secret air force base at the northern tip of Tsushima, now home to the Japanese coast guard.

China-born, Japan-based artist ISHU HAN filmed Not Ocean (2017) on the grass field outside the former school building. The video depicted Han ‘swimming’ across the grass from one end of the field to another in a single take, and was screened in the school’s blacked-out gymnasium.

MANYOUNG JUNG’s Wave on Boat – Pattern of the Earth (2017) comprises blocks of carved local cedar strung up with fishing line and vibrations caused by a piece of discarded timber resting on a speaker. Collectively, the scene mirrored the sights and sounds of nearby trees and waves.

MITSUO MARUHASHI’s video installation A Lot of Windows / From Elementary School’s Library (2017) juxtaposes desks and printed materials from the school with scenes of local flora and fauna.

BOKYONG KIM’s Talking Stone (2017), also shown at the former Hisada School site, was made up of Washi paper, ink and local stones from the nearby beach.

Soft LED lights frame white rectangles in DOKI KIM’s Decomposition (2017). The work alludes to the flags of the countries that have influenced Tsushima Island over the course of its history.

SOICHIRO MIHARA’s Study of Air (2017) is both a nod to the immediate landscape that the school sits within and the impact of technology in revitalizing detached communities such as those of Tsushima Island.

ISHU HAN’s A Square Cloud (2017) depicts the artist delivering “a gift of solid air,” as Han puts it, to the heavens. The styrofoam cube was carried all the way up to the top of a local summit by the artist, much to the bemusement of locals.

Tsushima Art Fantasia 2017 took place on Tsushima Island from September 2 to October 1, 2017.

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