On a Floating Bridge

Tokyo Wonder Site: Aoyama Creator-in-Residence is holding an open studio day this Saturday.

As well as being a chance to meet the current creators in residence at the ex-UN research building turned live-in studio space, Professor Hisako Hara of the Osaka Electro-Communication University is giving a talk entitled “Current Role and Issues of Artist-in-Residence in Tokyo”. So what is going on with Artist in Residence programs in Japan? To find out I looked up some of TWS’s history and future plans.

The 3 locations of the Wonder Site project are a product of the metropolitan cultural policy change at the turn of the millennium. According to TWS website,

“In 2001, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government changed its policy from cultural promotion that offers easier enjoyment of culture and art for citizens to one of support for the creation and transmission of culture and art. In the process of determining the Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s cultural policy, the promotion of creative work has become a central issue.”

Meaning, I think, that local government redirected funding from the visitor / audience side – (ticket prices?) to supporting new art production / artists. That is a significant shift, and sorely needed if Japan is to create world class artwork.

The director of Tokyo Wonder Site is one spry looking 51-year-old Yusaku Imamura, he is also an Advisor on Special Issues to the Governor.

In an interview on the Shibuya bunka website, Mr Imamura says that his inspiration for the project was the AA School of architecture in London because it focusses not on mere technical skills, but rather on fostering visionaries of talent, (noting particularly preferable the idea of having a pub on campus for people of different disciplines to meet and debate and get drunk together).

On the premise that great art is founded upon great communal spaces to interact and evolve, Tokyo Wonder Site was given form in Hongo, North East Tokyo, in 2001.

The history of artists in residence in Japan is short, and as Yasuko Ogiwara of the Association for Corporate Support of the Arts states,

“in terms of artists coming to Japan, the first genuine AIR programs – as opposed to exhibitions or festivals involving the invitation of participants – were actually organized by foreign embassies. The main reasons for this were probably that interest in AIR programs had grown faster overseas than in Japan, and also that there were many artists attracted to Japan as a location for artistic creation.”

She goes on to explain the rise in rural AiRs run by regional government -

“The main reason that many of Japan’s AIR programs are now undertaken by regional governments is that in 1997 the Agency for Cultural Affairs’ Section for the Promotion of Cultural Activities in Regional Areas commenced the “Artist-in-Residence Program”. Existing and new AIR programs in ten areas around the country were given financial support for three to five years and the Agency joined with various prefecture, city or town-level governments to become the co-organizers of those programs….”

And the consequences of this type of governance -

An obvious consequence of regional governments becoming organizers of AIR programs is that their objectives are broadened to include not only support for artists, but also the promotion or revitalization of those regions. Having invited this ‘creative human resource’ to the region, the question becomes the extent to which they can make it (the artist) available to the community…. Exchange activities provide local residents with the chance to get to know the artists’ thoughts, and even participate in the creative process. In this way, they open up an entirely new world to people who would normally have little contact with art. Depending on how the exchange activities are arranged, their two-way nature can afford a sense of affinity and genuine pleasure that is unattainable in places like art museums, where only a one-way relationship between work and viewer is possible. However, when the artist senses this “service” to local residents to be an obligation or restriction they will occasionally make their dissatisfaction known. Artistic support and regional development in AIR programs managed by regional governments: the balance between these two elements will always be a point of contention.”

Mr. Imamura is the first to admit that arts have been sidelined in terms of funding and status, he notes “It seems art and culture has always been categorized as a hobby or a pastime [in Tokyo / Japan]” and that demands of the public for cost effective spending by government made it hard to implement artist in residences since it was ‘difficult to judge whether the resulting art from a 3 month placement corresponded to the investment’.

Unlike the UK with its wider public support for the arts, a tradition of philanthropy as part of the business model, and the benefits of imperial conquests to create headline shows, Japanese arts organisations have a much smaller corner to fight from. In this climate, TWS’s aims are admirable and ambitious. After 10 years since the first Wonder Wall event (the precursor to the established site), TWS is now well set up with a far reaching educational program. It’s sectioned into programs for those right out of school, to those entering the middle stages of their career, and covers not just studio based fine artists but also musicians, curators and researchers for Japanese residents and overseas guests.

In the matter of solving the infrastructure issue of Japan’s AiR schemes, Mr. Imamura is again aspirational – ‘Of course, Japan also has many other residencies and so we are aiming to build TWS Aoyama as the hub for a national network’.

2010/3.13 sat 14:00 – 18:00 participants
�bake (Design studio)
Raquel Ormella (Artist)
Jeon Joonho (Artist)
Chung-Han Yao (Sound Art)
Matt Rogers (Composer)
Nicolas Lelievre (Artist)
Yu Kuwabara (Composer)
Nobuhiko Terasawa (Artist)
Hanako Murakami (Artist)
Takayuki Yamamoto (Artist)
Bettina Berger (Flutist)
Meri Nikula (Voice and Performance)