Living Everyday by Art  [2012]

In the current age where trans-border people pursuing their lives across a multitude of communities and countries are ever increasing, Youkobo Art Space, with its strong support of both international and domestic artists, is here taken as a stage upon which the everyday lives of 4 artists who work across Berlin, Melbourne, New York and Tokyo are drawn together.

Without being rooted to one place, these 4 members investigate to maintain their activities and positions as artists, and how to translate the everyday workings into the language of art. The various expressions derived from “Living Everyday by Art" will be sent weekly from each artist to Youkobo and installed at Youkobo gallery by Utako Shindo, the member of staff and the organizer of the project.

The weekly progress will be open to the public on weekends, and the accumulation of processes will be presented as an exhibition in the last two weeks of the project. Blog space 'Everyday Studio' will be also set as a plalform to share the process and to exchange the dialogue between the artists and people of various backgrounds who are "living the everyday".

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Immanent Landscape  [2010-2012]

Immanent Landscape is a project that brought together eight contemporary artists from Australia and Japan to explore the idea of ‘landscape’.

The project involves exhibitions, artists’ residencies, workshops, talk sessions and catalogue productions, and it took place in Australia (Melbourne) 2010 and in Japan (Tokyo & Oyama) 2011. With this manner in which artists move between two cultures over two years period for a project, we aim to create and share a new cultural ‘landscape’. In 2012, the project was completed with the final exhibition in Sydney.

The participating artists were Ai Sasaki, Atsunobu Katagiri, Nobuaki Onishi, Hisaharu Motoda, Kiron Robinson, Hamish Carr, Jeremy Bakker, and Utako Shindo who innitiated the project. Their artworks vary from photography, drawing, print, object to installation, however they have common in reflecting external environments and simultaneously embodying internal environments. Their artworks, therefore, encompasses the urban, mythological, social, historical, or spiritual context that humanity shares. From these diverse artworks a singular exhibition was curated to form an immersive ‘landscape’ where different views intersect. Further, each exhibition was planned and realized newly in response to the specificity of the site, and the activities taken prior to each show.

These artists are also active in engaging with art world through curation, education, producing event or being part of artist initiative projects. The project evolves their participation into residency programs, research trips, exhibitions, educational talk sessions or workshops to create dialogues between artists, strength relationships between art communities, and to approach broader audiences. These activities have connected artists cultural knowledge and experiences, resulted in producing an exhibition that appeals to individuals with divers cultural background.

The ‘Immanent Landscape’ project intended to imagine and share “Immanent Landscape” that may be embedded in our communal existence. It was so fotunate for the project to be able to picture “Immanent Landscape” for three and half years. It feels so thankful. Thank you very much, and wishing that those who were involved in the project may keep drawing your immannent landscape.

go to "Immanent Landscape" original website

The Galaxy Garden  [2011]

the galaxy garden is a group exhibition that responds poetically to the idea of the garden through a variety of media. Curated by Utako Shindo, the exhibition features work by seven Australian based artists and four Japanese artists.

May 7-28, 2011 / Sutton Gallery Project Space /

Artists
• Kim Donaldson
• Katarina Frank
• Bianca Hester
• Neil Malone
• Andrew MacQualter
• Nobuaki Onishi
• Fran Van Riemsdyk
• Kiron Robinson
• Ai Sasaki
• Chiyuki Sakagami
• Utako Shindo