The year 2014 will mark a milestone in the friendly relations between Switzerland and Japan who will celebrate the establishment of diplomatic relations 150 years ago. Together with both Swiss and Japanese partners in Singapore, the DAW would like to highlight these relations between the two countries by creating an event with the Japanese artists, Ichi Ikeda, the Swiss artist group, Curious Minds, Com&Com and as special guests in a project with Ichi Ikeda, the children living in Singapore.

Several projects are planned to take place which highlight the relations between Japan and Switzerland and which intensify the emotional bonds between both countries through cultural exchange and at the same time highlighting the multi-cultural landscape of Singapore. The first work to be exhibited are the original sketches of work “HANDFALLS” by Ichi IKEDA, which will be exhibited in the Lilly Pond of the ArtScience Museum Singapore; the second work is GAMES & WONDERMENTS by the Swiss arts group Curious Minds, which is a suite of small works that engage the visitor in playful ways. Com&Com will be exhibiting two project, the BLOCH Prints and the BLOCH Films, bringing a sense of nature and tradition into the exhibition. The final work and the most central work to the exhibition are the “Earth Cell Paintings”. Named after the title of the exhibition, this project invites children living in Singapore to participate in the exhibition by creating paintings under the motto “Art for the Future” and make a gesture for peaceful and sustainable future.

Artists

Com&Com (CHE)
Ichi Ikeda (JPN)
Curious Minds (CHE)
Leonard Bullock (CHE

Venue

Japan Creative Centre → more info

Hands Holding Water

Ichi Ikeda (JPN)

Photos of large hands all mounted on walls and facing as if to confront the viewer to today's environmental issues. Looking closer, each of the hands reveals information on actual water problems as if asking if you know that “80 percent of diseases in developing countries are still caused by contaminated water”; “20 percent of certain species of fresh water fish are nearly to the point of extinction”; ...and so on. Hands asking, Ichi Ikeda replying for us to listen to the voice of water: “We the people are to be born on the earth, caressed in a cradle of water and growing as it grows. All lives live in harmony. The rivers flow to fertility and the soil rises to ever green.”

The HANDFALLS Sketches

Ichi Ikeda (JPN)

The original sketches made by Ichi IKEDA for the ArtScience Museum proposal “HANDFALLS” will be exhibited for all to see. Created in collaboration with DAW International, HANDFALLS is a kinetic installation with floating images of blooming lotus flowers and hands holding clear water, which combine with light reflections echoing from pond’s surface on to the buildings façade. Using the imagery of hands and lotus flowers, the project sends a strong message: “let’s create a new landscape for the future from here and now and contemplate the idea of a renewed relationship between the nature and the human beings”. The multiple images of hands holding clean water suggests that this water is perhaps not only the very same that grows the leaves and flower of lotus landscape created out of floating photographic images, but the hands themselves stand for a society fully loaded with hope and wishing for a good future. Joined, the images of natural flowers and human hands depict a new kind of a landscape woven by both nature and human crafts, hinting us all to find what the artists has called the “primary relations” between our life and surrounding environment, in order for it to become one and the same.

The EARTH PUZZLE Paintings

Children (SGP)

Today's children are in the best position to act in helping to increase environmental awareness and to show us all that there is a real need to work toward sustainable life on earth. The “Earth Puzzle Paintings” consist of a collection of hexagonal shaped paintings created by the children, which will be and exhibited together, playfully “linked in prosperity” by combining them into puzzle figures of animals and flowers. The idea of creating an outreach project to children in Singapore for creating a large floor puzzle was picked up by the arts group Curious Minds, who were inspired by Ichi IKEDA’s children’s challenge for the planed EarthCell workshop.

Collage/ Montage Series

Leonard Bullock (CHE)

his series combines direct traditional collage and montage techniques with scanned image printing using a mechanical plotter; pictures from lenticular photographs cut out, and computer manipulated digital photographs using applications which imitate archival printing methods. These works are then painted using oil paint, encaustic, and phosphorescent pigments. These seemingly disparate elements are brought into synthesis, unifying into a single image made from diverse materials. Some of the series has pictorial imagery, others appear to be small abstract paintings. The overall feeling of the series is varied, but even when the works are "abstract" categorically speaking, there's a sense that they produce a field, virtual spaces.The titles invoke another, what with some images seems a facetious humour which further thwart any comfortable sense that these works, at least those with naturalistic images, might be read as narratives. "Magic Garden", "V-eye", "Fire Landscape", "Hokusai Flip-Flop".

BLOCH Print

Com&Com (CHE)

BLOCH is a global and multidisciplinary project by Swiss artist duo Com&Com (Marcus Gossolt / Johannes M. Hedinger), which unites contemporary art and folk culture and creates a dialogue among various people, traditions, and customs all over the world. The BLOCH print series was created by literally employing an entire tree trunk (2 tons) and a crane as a printing press. The tree trunk used is central element of the BLOCH project, and is positioned on a trailer, pulled in procession and bringing together artists from all the visited stations. BLOCH has made its way from Switzerland over Germany, Taiwan, China to Singapore. It was shown in exhibitions such as the last Shanghai Biennale, different museums and the public spaces around the globe. The BLOCH works are reminiscent of traditions that included nature, customs and folk art. - www.bloch23781.com

Games & Wonderments

Curious Minds (INT)

The title makes a direct reference to a collection of works where the desire to create a state of mind that is more akin to the Curious Minds' intention of kindling a smile on the face through artistic spoking rather feeling the need to cover naked white walls with art works. The white walls of the art world are striped bare ala Duchamp and resurrected in the mind's eye to "view" at will and when and where and as one pleases. Games, stories, cards, and recopies for a brief moment of curiosity of wonderment, cataloged in a process of "transaction" between one and another for the benefit of a third, you the viewer. Not on the wall, but everything none the less on view as proof of a concept, as benchmarks of a friendship, as a concrete but pluralistic exchange tempered by season through season, and finally as a set of collected memories forged into things made from the holy trinity of paper, scissors and glue.

BLOCH Film Compilation (Urnäsch, St.Gallen, Bern, Berlin)

Com&Com (CHE)

BLOCH is a global and multidisciplinary project by Swiss artist duo Com&Com (Marcus Gossolt / Johannes M. Hedinger), which unites contemporary art and folk culture and creates a dialogue among various people, traditions, and customs all over the world. The BLOCH cycle of Swiss Artist Duo Com&Com takes on different forms as time passes. BLOCH consisting of a large tree trunk resting on a trailer, pulled in processions and bringing together artists from all the visited stations. BLOCH has made its way from Switzerland over Germany, Taiwan, China to Singapore. It was shown in exhibitions such as the last Shanghai Biennale, different museums and the public spaces around the globe. For each of the BLOCH stations a film was created to document the manifestation of BLOCH in the diverse cultures in which it has been places and celebrated. The series of digital films made are evident to the fact that traditions evolve as time passes and cultures shift conceptual space. The BLOCH works are reminiscent of traditions that included nature, customs and folk art. - www.bloch23781.com

Page last modified on June 27, 2013, at 08:36 AM