I visited Copenhagen to set up my works for “Windowology: New Architectural Views from Japan” at the VILLUM Window Collection, and attended the opening event. Afterwards, I went to see the Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt and other art museums, and also went to see art festivals such as the Kassel Documenta, Manifesta 14, Venezia Biennale and the Hybrid Biennale.

I happened to participate in the half-marathon held in the town of Marathon, which is where the sporting event originated. With regard to the theme of physicality that has in recent years been a subject of interest to me, I have sincerely tried to capture it during the COVID-19 pandemic and felt the importance of making my own body move in the form of overseas travel.

In New York, not only did I visit exhibitions at art museums and galleries, and expose myself to the art scene, I also examined film-based works in the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. In Asheville I visited the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center and the site of the former Black Mountain College, a facility that is still exerting much influence on contemporary artists. By spending time with the Museum’s executive director I became involved in its current new project, and I was able to start on work that I had never imagined before leaving Japan.

I went overseas in order to restart the research I had been conducting prior to the COVID-19 pandemic on the 1960s dance scene in the U.S. I also went with the thought of asking what makes Japan “Japan”, and to relativize Japan through the key word of “Japanese devices.”
I did not tie myself down to the research content I had planned, but went sequentially to places that came to the surface during my research and places that others introduced me too. I also tried to add to my schedule as many towns and cities as possible that I had never been to before, and in combination with the places I was revisiting I ended up going to may more places than I expected, and was able to make all sorts of discoveries.
Furthermore, in addition to observing and researching, I spent some time running around all the places I visited. In Manhattan for example, by running from Broadway to the area around Central Park I was able to physically feel the vast size of the city and where all the museums were located. It also helped me to consider how arts exists within cities, and the differences with Japan.

Text, Photo: TSUDA Michiko
Edited by Tokyo Arts and Space