This was a collection of the participating artists' ideas about their works, their day-to-day thoughts as they created them, their moods and how they felt about taking part in Amabiki Village and Sculpture. Click on the name of the artist.
- Group · RA
- The Earth is said to be the only planet with water. We created two works on the theme of "Water, the Source of Life." The first, "Shining River," is an attempt to express the beauty of the Sakura River and the importance of water; it embodies the hope that all living things will shine.
The second, "Tower of Water" is a five-meter tower made from over a thousand plastic bottles. It is an attempt to express the joining of heaven and earth by the great cycle of water.
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- MOCHIZUKI Hisaya
- Living things do not give birth to stories. My work does not reach the center, it just wanders on the periphery. Perfection is not happiness. As the song says, "The answer is blowing in the wind".
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- YAMAZAKI Takashi
- Each stone, as a natural object, is unique; there is no other like it. Though it may seem trivial, when you get involved with the magic of technology, even that fact gets blurred to the point of not being seen. Without realizing it, we allow our sense perceptions to become homogenized. And when you try to get something back, it's not there. The place where I placed this work was the scene of a forest fire. Now the forest has started coming back to life, little by little. This is where I put my sculpture.
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- SHIMADA Tadayuki
- The two cars next to the approach path to Hakusan shrine bothered me, but they seemed to have some kind of connection with the place. It looked like someone had made an offering of a rusted car with broken glass and a red compact car that looked ready to go any time. Even so, they bothered me, and therefore, I decided to hide them and make them secret. It seems that, for some things, the more you conceal them, the more something about them remains in view.
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- MAKI Wataru
- I was put here one day. Feeling out of place among the trees, my expression doesn't change as the thick tree trunks shake in the breeze, and as I soak in the light filtering in through the leaves and branches. I am a stone. Thinking that, I have a feeling that I too will be able to join in the symphony with the trees, animals and many other companions.
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- KANAZAWA Kenichi
- I still remember the amazement I felt one afternoon in the summer of last year when I discovered this bamboo grove. The bamboo runs on to a great depth, and the air it exudes is dense, yet exalted. It filled me with awe. I will erect nine columns in this grove, each consisting of three rectangular steel sections. I will insert my iron will, which is the raw material of my sculpture, into the time and space created by this grove.
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- TAKADA Satoru
- In a sense, this exhibition is a place of experiment and study of how sculpture should be exhibited in a natural setting. My sculpture takes reverence for nature as its spiritual support. It is based on the dynamic beauty of a mechanical structure caught in the tension between space and a suspended instant of time. This bridge is guided by the unseen direction of the earth's axis. It is placed in the river because it serves as a backdrop for the work, and because the it includes an awareness of our aspiration to reach the other side, of the heart that reflects human life in the flow of water.
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- FUJIKURA Kumiko
- I created this work with the idea of producing a sense of relief and relaxation for those who view it. It is based on my recollection of a certain family ten years ago.
Art first began from a spirit of playfulness, and I want to get back to that starting point.
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- MIZUKAMI Yoshihisa
- I borrowed the disused site of a stone merchant and used the building foundations like a canvas to express my own view of nature. This was a very personal attempt to deepen my relationship with my art, which stood out in contrast with the site, rather than blending into it.
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- MATSUDA Bumpei
- I planted moss in the holes that were originally made to split the white marble. Moss uses the dew for nutrition to grow. The blocks of stone, laid flat, represent droplets of water from the dew. Things with tangible form can be seen, and those without form cannot, but the dew belongs to neither group, and I took that as my theme.
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- TODA Yusuke
- The rain falling on this village wets the house rooftops, dampens the rice fields and flows to Kasumigaura, to Kashima, and on to the Pacific. Some returns to the sky, and some nourishes the crops, moving into human bodies and spreading throughout Japan. Where does the wind blowing across this village come from? And where does it go? Perhaps the wind blowing now will be absorbed into all kinds of adults and children, blowing on through Japan, through the world, and into the future.
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- MURAI Shingo
- There is a small wood next to a cemetery in a sunny spot surrounded by gently rolling farmland. I thought it would be difficult to carry the sculpture onto that site, but I chose it because I was strongly drawn to it.
Propriety is achieved when a thing is as it should be, and that is how I myself should be.
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- FUJIMOTO Hitoshisadanari
- Since last year I have built a device to show IZAWA Masana's photographs of molds, mushrooms and mosses in an enjoyable way, and I have presented it at elementary schools, mycology seminars, art exhibitions, museums and elsewhere. Now I look forward to showing the people of Amabiki, and the visitors to the Second Amabiki Village and Sculpture, the photographs of moss and mushrooms that IZAWA took in the course of six months of fieldwork.
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- HIROSE Hikaru
- When I visited this wood before, looking for a site, it was much denser and harder to move around in. With the undergrowth cut back after the end of winter, the wood is much less dense, and it is easy to look across the little shrine in the center. It is also possible to measure the passage of time. Similarly, the created works seem to soak up the amount of time you spend moving among them. I think that is the source of their gravity, as distinct from their weight.
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- MIYAZAWA Izumi
- Thank you for taking the time to visit the Amabiki Village and Sculpture Exhibition. I can't express my feelings in words, but conversely, are there words that cannot be expressed in feelings? So said the sheep of the grasslands of Ulaan Baatar to the waterfowl of the Mekong Delta. The only answer was in the cries of the birds. When this area is bathed in moonlight, the other place enjoys the splendor of the morning sun.
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- SATO Akira
- When I think about a sculpture for a given space, the decision on its size is an important factor. A lump of rock, visualized as a mass, is amazingly large and exerts an intense presence on its surroundings. Cutting and gouging away the inside of the rock diminishes the initial pressure it applied, and its presence gradually comes to antagonize the surrounding air. I want the remaining stone left as a frame to stand up as if wavering against the sky and the surrounding greenery, within the range of nature's oscillation.
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- NAKAIGAWA Yuki
- In the middle of the barley field, there is a little shrine and trees growing up as if to defend it. I gave the name "Listening to a voice of sky" to the work placed alongside it. The fields and woods, twisting like waves as they spread out, are linked by narrow roads that follow the lay of the land. The sky is so high. Standing in that place, that small area, no more than a tiny corner of the world, we come to feel like we're at the center of everything. I feel like I can detect changes happening far away.
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- SHIBATA Tsugio
- Vegetation has moved into the form that I created by piling stone upon stone. For example, if there is one stalk that has shot out, new buds are growing from that stalk, and the way they flower, regularly and in unexpected forms, can only be described as bizarre.
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- KAIZAKI Saburo
- Just being near the size and weight of steel made me tired. As the work progressed, I witnessed one aspect of steel that resembled violent fear. Looking for the reasons for that fear and assuaging it was strangely entertaining and my spirits rose. Disappear and remain, front and back, show and hide ? these contradictory words are fused into one by heat.
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- INOUE Masayuki
- I think people have always gone about their business without being aware of the landscape and the like. However, the rational, frugal, efficient and diligent way people go about their business has formed a landscape with a tamed and regulated appearance. That is why this is a pleasing view. Beautiful farmland and areas for making farm produce can be described as conglomerations of elements, each with its own role. I wanted to put a foreign body, one without a role, among those elements.
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- YAMAZOE Jun
- I end up stripping the stone naked. I can be delighted as I peel away a layer at a time. But it can also be good to just rip it all off. Some stones are shy, some want to undress themselves. Depending on how you do it, you may be disappointed, or you may think, "Wow!" Whichever approach you take, start with a little flirting.
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- YASUDA Masako
- I found a grove that the sun penetrated into. I put together some boards I was carrying and thought about the image of circulating water. Departing from the usual forms, I continued this work up to the time of placement, and even now I'm arguing with myself about how to interact with this setting.
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- OKAMOTO Atsuo
- Some things don't stand out. They are swallowed up and obscured by the scenery. They are things that should have an ostentatious, assertive presence but are stained by the colors of their environment and melt into it because of an indistinct exterior. You don't see them unless you want to find them. I'm interesting in things that are inscrutable when they come into view.
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- NAKAMURA Yoshitaka
- It has been 25 years since I started casting basic forms with my own hands, and I still fail repeatedly. But there are times when failure shows me the beginnings of new forms, and my work brings me fresh surprises. The work I'm exhibiting approaches a theme I've been pursuing in recent years-putting the image of machines on the human body.
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- KUNIYASU Takamasa
- Walking around the rice-growing area of Amabiki Village, one becomes aware that water is a gift that spins into life. The moment I saw the reservoir pool with Mt. Tsukuba behind it, I wanted to float my work there, like a flowering lotus. I wanted to create a work that, like a lotus, would represent the invisible cosmos between this world and the world beyond, the resting place. I wanted to see it with my own eyes and make it part of the scenery of Amabiki.
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- YOKOYAMA Aska
- There are some moments in daily life when you re-recognize the presence of light that fills space. Light is noticed when it touches something, but I wanted to take the light that must exist between the source and the thing it falls on, and make it tangible. This is a device that gathers the natural light that pours down by day, and subtly emits light when darkness falls. It presents an experience of light.
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- WATANABE Hiroshi
- Copses are one proof that Japanese people have coexisted with nature, and they have attracted attention in recent years as a representative samples of natural ecology. This secondary forest runs wild without human care, and eventually dies out. Many of the woods in Amabiki are still well cared for, and there are a lot of people who understand nature and live alongside it. I created my piece while thinking what form would get in the way the least when placed among them.
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- YAMAJO Rei
- I want to create a new space from a combination of bronze lines and faces. The first time I visited Yamato Village, I was struck by the beautiful sparkling air, light and wind. I want to express that sparkle in a grove of trees with the soft sunlight filtering in.
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- SHIGA Masao
- A wind blows gently through the precincts of Takaku shrine in Amabiki Village. It now sleeps peacefully, leaving traces of past glory. That must be a gentle wind, like one in a memory. Sometimes it is a fiercely raging wind. A wind that is moved to tears. A wind that laughs. The color of the wind of ancient times is faintly visible. The color of the wind is in the middle of a memory.
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- TANAKA Tsuyoshi
- In many ways people can be performing some kind of act of austerity. Indian ascetics, monks and the like are famous for that, but perhaps giving up drinking or stop smoking are other forms of austerity. I gave form to the image of people who recited sutras in front of my house when I was a child, and who now stand in front of stations and similar places for their austere devotions.
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- SUZUKI Norio
- I devoted my effort to the rich soil in a place built from the blessings of nature. The work I built from stone, taking my own body as a reference, is somewhat raised from the ground. By fitting in with the natural conditions, I was able to gain a place that had not existed before, a place that will become a part of the scenery.
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- SUGAWARA Jiro
- Envisaging a large stone split into eight pieces, a composition of faces which did not previously exist is formed inside the original stone. That exists in the mind's eye, but cannot be seen in its concreteness. Adding thickness to that form, I tried to carve it from one raw stone. Asking what it would be like if I added some holes to those faces, I arrived at my current piece of work.
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- FURUKAWA Jun
- When I think long and hard about something, I often get a sudden feeling that the subject has become insignificant. Whatever triggers the shift, things become easier because my heart is lighter, and I get the feeling that I solved something, if only by avoidance.
Perhaps I don't have the type of brain that can continuously think about one thing, and perhaps I only imagine that I am thinking.
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- TAMURA Tomoyoshi
- It's been five years since I started creating works on the theme of stag beetle's horns. In the first two or three years, I wanted nothing more than to pursue the form, but if I try to convey my feelings into the stone, the form shifts and I don't think there's any end to it. Now, if I could just seal something like my expression and emotions into stone ?that's what I want.
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- SAITO Toru
- In a grove of trees, catch the rain, bathe in the sun, sense the fragrance of the new leaves and absorb the lessons of the fallen leaves. Then, I want to make a gift of the thing that I have expressed in form as a way to feel time and existence inside me. As a person who drifts for days over a problem made complex by polarization, I hope this serves me as a pointer for the way forward.
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- HIRAI Kazuyoshi
- Children take beans and try to pile them up. It's difficult to stack beans, with their irregular lumpiness. Beans are like dreams, life, or what else? While I exist and you exist, and we come to stand in a place, with the joy of blending into the entire scene, feeling our thoughts, then I am happy.
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- OHGURI Katsuhiro
- I take seasonal, spatial and spiritual openness as my theme. I think about forms that can take in the light, wind and smells of Yamato Village, and in a tranquil mountain village filled with the sense of life, my greatest concern is how the angle at which the sun falls will affect the presence of the work and its impact on its site.
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- MURAKAMI Tsukumo
- The trees I used in my work were crape myrtle from Oshima, zelkova from Fukushima and sawara cypress from Ibaraki. Each type is a giant tree, centuries old, and they had finished their labors in their different regions. Combining and assembling them gave birth to a new tree from trees. If they all had decayed, they will return to the refined stage of a tree. I think that I have done an extra thing again.
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- MOMOSE Hiroyuki
- The mushroom-grower's hut was born within the flow of the economy, and its role ended with the end of that economy, leaving it to crumble. For a moment in the span of time before it disappears, my use of it in a work of art added to the history of the hut. This was meaningful for me. A seashell is a nest that once had life within it, growing over a long period, and while it went on living, it kept changing as proof of that life. Maybe my work is another husk of life.