CROSS STAY Program

CROSS STAY Program is a program that encourages artists and local residents to actively exchange and interact. We hold events and worksshops when the LONG STAY or SHORT STAY program is taking place in town.For our first application call, we set a theme, “HEAR ” and 62 artists from all over the world applied for the opportunity.After careful consideration, a 30-year-old Polish artist Pawel Dziemian, who lives and works in London, was elected.

City of Matsudo, Chiba Prefecture, has been said to be a hot spot of radiation after the Fukushima accident, and both government and people have been working hard to solve the problem. Exactly three years after the earthquake, Pawel Dziemian organized interviews and workshops with local people to “hear” their words, and turned it into an art work. During that time, we also organized small talks by artsits, curators and architects who work in Tohoku area. We also did screening of a documentary based on activities in Fukushima after the earthquake.
Thus, we believe that the program not only encouraged cultural exchanges between the Polish artist and local people, but became an opportunity for everyone to reconsider precious values in everyday life.

Application Theme : HEAR
Proposed Period of Stay : Friday, Oct. 25th 2013 – Monday, Nov. 25th, 2013
Period of Invitation : Friday, Jan. 24th, 2014 – Wednesday, Mar. 12th, 2014
Number of Applications : 62 Artists
Jury : Yoshitaka Mori (Sociologist, Associate Professor at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music), Fumihiko Sumitomo (Curator, Director of Arts Maebashi)

 

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From Jury

Pawel Dziemian is an Polish artist, who makes his art works by sensing peculiality in everyday life and underlining the oddity in his performance. It is not like “making” art but more like “intervening” into a city or a sight. I am excited to see what he will find in everyday life of Matsudo.
Yoshitaka Mouri (Sociaologist / Associate Professor at Tokyo Univeristy of the Arts)

Though this most recent Long Stay Program was only the first open to the public, we received an impressive and diverse array of applications from artists spread across the world who seemed to represent a microcosm of the present contemporary art scene. Pawel Dziemian stuck out from the bunch due to his culturally unique project proposal. We were excited to see what a young Polish artist – who focused primarily upon Western European art – could discover and accomplish in Japan. Since PARADISE AIR is also a young and unique urban development program focused upon promoting a free, albeit structured space for regional rejuvination, we were hoping to try something brand new.
Fumihiko SUMITOMO (Curator / Director of Arts Maebashi)

Jury’s profile

Yoshitaka Mori (Sociologist / Associate Professor at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music)

Profile: Born 1963. Dr. Mori obtained his Ph.D in Sociology and his M.A. in Media and Communications from Goldsmiths College, University of London. His first degree was a B.A. in Economics from Kyoto University. He is currently an Associate Professor of Sociology and Cultural Studies in the Faculty of Music, Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, a position he assumed after working as an assistant professor at Kyuusyuu University. His research interests include sociology, media studies, cultural studies and contemporary art. Some of his works include The Thought in the Streets: A Turn in the 1990s (NHK), DiY culture for the beginners (Hajimeteno DiY, 2008), Popular Music and Capitalism (Serica Shobo, 2007), and Culture = Politics: cultural and political movement in the age of globalization (Getsuyo-sha, 2003). He also serves as Director of NPO Art Institute Kitakyushu (AIK).

 

Fumihiko Sumitomo (Curator, Director of Arts Maebashi)

Born 1971. Sumitomo is an Associate Director of Arts Initiative Tokyo. He has worked as a curator at Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo and Seoul City Art Museum, and also as the director of Yokohama’s International Film Festival in 2009. Some of his exhibitions include “Possible Future: Art and Technology, Past and Future” (2008), which focused upon the the work of postwar artists who experimented with art and technology, as well as an exhibit on Tadashi Kawamata at Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo in 2008.