I held a workshop with students from the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, taking "trash" as the keyword, analyzing what kind of ideas come to mind when one thinks of trash. Students gave shape to their ideas using aluminum foil. Although we started off discussing trash simply in terms of being trash, gradually the students came to question what it really is. Finally, I exhibited a work called "Garden of Kiseki" at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. The word "kiseki" plays on Japanese homonyms for a variety of different words with different meanings: "tracks", "rare stones", "miracles" and "roster of the dead". This project was not about perceiving trash as a material, but about becoming conscious of the (invisible) patterns and contexts, and visualizing its "kiseki".

“Beautiful New World: Contemporary Culture from Japan”
Venue:Guandong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China
Year:2007
Medium:Garbages

back