Nobuyuki Fujiwara Retirement Commemorative Exhibition~The 20-Year Trajectory of Glass Art Laboratory~
This exhibition commemorates the retirement of Nobuyuki Fujiwara, who guided students at the Glass Art Laboratory, Faculty of Fine Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts, and commemorates the 20th anniversary of the Glass Art Laboratory.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Glass Art Laboratory, which was established in 2005. Fujiwara, who has been involved in the laboratory since its founding and will retire this year, can be said to have spent the years as a faculty member in the history of the Glass Art Laboratory itself. Retirement exhibitions are often held in the form of solo exhibitions, but this exhibition will be a group exhibition with more than 50 exhibitors, including alumni of Fujiwara and the Glass Art Laboratory, former faculty members, current students, and current faculty members.
On the first floor of the exhibition hall, works by Fujiwara, current students and current faculty members from Glass Art Laboratory will be exhibited; On the second floor, works by alumni and former faculty members will be exhibited. Besides, on the first floor, there are also works from alumni and current students from GAP (Global Art Practice), another discipline in which Fujiwara has been involved.
Takumi Uchida, a master’s student in GAP, will release his first book, Futoko Quest, on October 2, published by Asuka Shinsha. This autobiographical essay chronicles his life growing up through homeschooling, detailing his journey from encountering music to becoming a composer. In a time when 460,000 school-aged children are not attending school and exploring diverse educational paths, this book serves as an archive of one possible way of living, offering a new perspective on navigating such challenges.
Otsuka Kenjiro International Exchange Program for the Faculty of Fine Arts 2024
Presentation for Research Workshop held in Uzbekistan
Tapchan (топчан) time together?
We are pleased to welcome you to a debriefing session on the research workshop held August 16-22, 2024, touring four cities in Uzbekistan (Tashkent, Khiva, Bukhara, and Samarkand) and the surrounding areas. In this session, seven participating students will take the lead and report on their experiences and what they gained from their research in their own ways.
[Messages from participating students]
During our seven-day stay in Uzbekistan, we visited four cities and traveled approximately 1,000 km. The journey was like running around with limited time, feeling the limits of our bodies (especially our intestines and stomachs), and we were overwhelmed by the culture and architecture of Uzbekistan, which has functioned as a crossroads of various cultures from ancient times to the Middle Ages, modern times, and today. As we traveled from town to town by microbus for five to seven hours, gazing out the windows of the bus, we became aware of the earth, sky, sun, and moon… and the fact that we were living on the earth.
Through the trip, we were also able to catch a glimpse of people’s daily lives. Families spreading out their carpets on the roadside are washing their carpets. People waiting by the roadside for cars heading in the same direction. Cars moving quickly signaled by lights and horns, and just in time to move into the lane next to them.
And then there is a large piece of furniture with wooden chairs and tables on the edge of the house, which we happened to encounter throughout our trip. It is called Tapchan. At Tapchan, people eat, drink tea, talk, and nap with family and friends. The Tapchan is a place where people can gather without any purpose or goal, helping to create an everyday moment, which is typical of Uzbekistan.
Because of our admiration for this way of spending time at Tapchan, we would like to extend the exchange that is created in Tapchan to this debriefing session. Although we could not bring a Tapchan from Uzbekistan, we’d like to invite you to the circle of conversation in each participant’s own style of Tapchan, and spend time leisurely sharing memories and research. Looking forward to spending time with you!
[Date]
October 21, Monday. 6pm to 8pm (O.K. to enter and exit anytime during the event)
[Venue]
Community Salon, 3rd floor of Taki Plaza. (Ueno Campus of Tokyo University of the Arts)
本授業では、彼女が現在構想中の長編映画および演劇プロジェクトの製作過程で生まれたレクチャーパフォーマンス『Homesick for another world』を特別に上演して頂きます。中国でのハード・ロックダウンの経験を出発点に、抑圧された記憶や消された歴史に、私的かつ詩的なアプローチでの接近を試みます。
Mei Liu is a filmmaker and artist from Shanghai, China, currently based in the Netherlands. She is gaining attention as a young artist who develops performances and video installations with a unique warmth and eye as an extension of the film medium.
In this class, she will give a special performance of her lecture performance “Homesick for Another World,” which was created in the process of making a feature-length docu-fiction film and theater project she is currently conceptualizing. Taking her experience of a hard lockdown in China as a starting point, the performance will attempt to approach repressed memories and erased histories with a personal and poetic approach.
This will be followed by a feedback session in dialogue with Mei Liu’s mentor, artist Lieko Shiga, and a discussion with the students.
Mei Liu is an artist and filmmaker from Shanghai who now lives in Amsterdam. She received her BFA in Film Production from NYU Tisch School of the Arts (New York, USA) and MA in Artistic Research in and through Cinema at the Netherlands Film Academy (Amsterdam, NL). She also participated in the Apichatpong Weerasethakul film lab in the Amazon jungle.
Her video installation works have been exhibited in Jogja-Netpac Asian Film Festival (Indonesia); 前台OneStepForward (China); Keep an Eye Festival (Amsterdam). Her lecture performance was shown at the EYE Filmmuseum (Amsterdam) and Forecast Forum (Berlin). Her short films have been shown at Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival (France), among others.
Mei strives to create new filmmaking spaces that disrupt existing hierarchies and interactions in society. She is developing a ‘film yoga’ practice to gain spiritual insights through mindful filmmaking. She co-founded Cenote (originally Cenote Workshop) — a collaborative art research and practice project centered around Mysticism and Spiritual Activism.
Born in Aichi in 1980, based in Miyagi, Japan. Graduated with an MA from Chelsea College of Art and Design, London Institute in 2004.
“As someone who grew up in a clean and safe environment that favored convenience, my affinity with camera equipment was an extremely violent one,” says Shiga, for whom the space-time of photography was a salvation and excitement greater than “death.” In 2008, Shiga moved to Miyagi Prefecture, where she became involved in the local community and continued producing works related to memories that span generations, thinking about life from imaginations of death, and the relationship between nature and human society. Her experiences in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake, which saw the breaking down of social functions along the coast and the unforgiving disposition of the laws of nature, link back to “recovery” efforts seen in postwar Japan, inciting an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. Shiga, through her creative process and production, seeks the roots of the human spirit. Her works are intent on visualizing, through the medium of photography, what she calls “the eternal present,” a moment that is neither past nor future suspended in space-time. They are photographic spaces in which the viewer can see their own body and consciousness reflected back as if looking in a mirror.
Lecture Room 1, Central Building, Faculty of Fine Arts, Ueno Campus, Tokyo University of the Arts (No. 7 on the map below) *There will be no online streaming of this lecture.
https://www.geidai.ac.jp/access/ueno
対象 Eligibility:
本学の学生・教職員、学外一般 （先着順、定員150名）
GAP修士１年の学生は必修授業（GAPセミナー）の一環なので必ず履修すること。
TUA students, faculty, staff, public (first-come, first-served; capacity of 150)
使用言語 Language：
英語 English
参加無料・要予約（先着順）Admission and Booking:
Free of charge, reservations required (first-come, first-served)：
Why not join us in a playful dialogue with wild plants around us and see what words bloom from our connection with the land? Wild plants roam freely, crossing invisible borders like national and prefectural lines. Sometimes they’re shunned by humans, sometimes they heal us, but they always share a deep bond with us, transcending time and place. In this workshop, we’ll forage for wild plants, savour their aromas and flavours, and let them inspire us to craft the poetry that bridge the gap between us and the land.
We’ll kick off with Nagisa Mizuno, who will share her reflections on the boundary between her body and the land. Drawing from her year-long adventure gathering wild plants in Finland in 2023, she’ll tell the story of ‘Momo-iro no Tea (Peach-Coloured Tea),’ a short tale inspired by her experiences. Then, we’ll take a stroll through the neighbourhood to gather intriguing wild plants. Back at our gathering spot, we’ll brew wild plant tea, watch its colour change, inhale its scent, and put our feelings into words. The words we create from these wildflowers will blossom into poems full of unique emotions and perspectives.
Sharing and connecting with each other is a key part of the fun. Let’s enjoy this journey of tasting wild plants and playing with words together!
