JCC E-Magazine March 2017

During the start of artist talk.

Two sessions of artist talks with the theme on landscapes were held on Saturday, 4th February 2017 as part of the Japan Media Arts Festival Special Exhibition in Singapore at JCC (Japan Creative Centre).

It was an exclusive opportunity for visitors to get close with some of the participating artists, as well as to understand more about their inspiration and concept behind their artistic journey and media artworks showcased at the exhibition.

Entitled ‘Landscapes of Japan and Singapore’, two participating artists – Ms Shoko Ebihara from Japan and Ms Sarah Choo from Singapore were the highlight of the first session. They spoke about how similar and differently they view the landscapes of their own country from new perspectives, with both having the same gender and generation but grew up in different environment and background.

The artists further explored and discussed such influences in their media artworks – Ms Ebihara’s series of souvenir photographs where she took pictures of herself in a suit around various landscapes and places of attractions in Japan, and Ms Sarah Choo’s video installation entitled ‘Waiting for the Elevator’, which documented normally unnoticed, trivial and repetitive actions in the void decks of HDBs, a common landscape in Singapore.

Ms Shoko Ebihara and Ms Sarah Choo speaking at the artist talk.

Mr Tadasu Takamine speaking at the artist talk.

The second session was entitled ‘Landscape from unstable window’, where participating artists Mr Tadasu Takamine, as well as the Planning Directors of this exhibition, Mr Kensuke Sembo and Ms Yae Akaiwa of exonemo shared their critical approach and reexamined the modern global landscapes as people no longer see them through windows, but also from frames such as photos and mobile devices where we do not need to be physically there. It is an experiment through their artworks that seeks to discover the whereabouts of the world we sense to be real by reconsidering the landscapes we see before our eyes.

The exhibition, Landscapes: New vision through multiple windows – Japan Media Arts Festival Special Exhibition in Singapore, was held at JCC from 3rd to 18th February 2017. This is also the second time JCC has held Japan Media Arts Festival with previous one in 2011.

Started out since 1996, the exhibition was organised by Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan and managed by NHK International, which is an annual overseas festival that aims to introduce outstanding and award-winning works in the areas of media art, videos, the websites, videogames, animations and comics.

Mr Kensuke Sembo of exonemo speaking at the artist talk.

Guests attending the artist talk.

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