Profiles

GUEST ARTIST |

OTOMO Yoshihide

Musician/ Guitarist / turntablist / composer / film score composer / record producer

Born in 1959 in Yokohama, Japan.

As a teenager, he spent time in Fukushima.

Staying independent, he has consistently composed a wide range of music from improvisation to noise music and pop, and his music talent has spread all over the world. He has a successful career as a film score composer and has produced more than 70 movie soundtracks.

In recent years, he has produced special type of concerts and musical works in collaboration with other various artists under the name of ”ensembles”.

In addition, one of his priorities is,producing musical workshop projects involving handicapped children.

In 2011, after the Great East Japan Earthquake, he started “PROJECT FUKUSHIMA!” along with people in various sectors. He has been active beyond the music scene and this is the reason that he has attracted a great deal of attention.

In 2012, he received the Minister of Education Award for Fine Arts in the category of Promotion for ”PROJECT FUKUSHIMA!”.

In 2013, he received various prizes including the Japan Record Award for his accomplishments, such as composing the theme music for the TV drama “Amachan”.

I use my real name “Otomo Yoshihide” as my stage name.

When you write your Japanese name in English alphabet, many people often write their given names first, then their family names, following in the Western traditional culture. But originally, some Asian countries, including Japan, write their family names first, and then their given names follow after that.

In my opinion, there is not only one standard for people’s names and we should respect the values each person attaches to their name. Calling someone by his first name is a wonderful custom in Western culture to express familiarity with each other but that custom is not necessary in Japan because nobody has ever called me by my first name. It does not mean that people are unlikely to become close friends with me. It is just that calling me “Otomo” seems easier.

There are some places with such customs in the world; where people friendlily call you by your family name.

I am definitely not a nationalist but I have a feeling that something is wrong with those people who do not only disregard the tradition I am familiar with, but would rather follow Western standards.

GUEST ARTIST |

SUZUKI Akio

Sound Artist

A legendary Japanese sound artist Suzuki Akio has been performing, building instruments, and presenting sound installations for nearly 40 years. Suzuki’s journey as an artist began in 1963 with a performance at Nagoya station, in which he threw a bucket full of junk down a staircase. Suzuki’s performances and installations have been presented by numerous festivals and museum in several continents such as AV Festival(NewCastle, 2014), The National Museum of Modern Art(Kyoto, 2007), Musee Zadkin(Paris, 2004), British Museum(London, 2002), Donaueschingen Festival (Donaueschingen, 1998), Docmenta8(Kassel, 1987), Japan House(New York, 1983), Festival d’ Automne(Paris, 1978) and many others.

www.akiosuzuki.com
GUEST ADVISER |

TRAN Luong

Artist / Curator

1960: Born in Ha Noi. Tran Luong is a performance and visual artist, independent curator and major figure increating space for critical contemporary art in Vietnam. Among the first local artists to experiment with performance and video, his artwork is grounded in local experience. Challenging socio-political legacies and policies that repress individual expression, his work offers moving reflections on the impact of ideology on the body, particularly the internalisation of political repression at a young age in works.

Active in making opportunities for artists, Tran co-founded the Gang of Five (1983-1996), which organised monthly exhibitions in alternative spaces. In 1998, he co-founded Nha San Studio, the country’s first, artist-led, experimental art space, and curated the majority of its exhibitions in the initial four years.

His moving artworks that critique repression, emphasise human resilience and empower the individual through personal action and self-reflection; for his dedicated energy in developing spaces, initiatives, networks and communities for performance and video arts in Vietnam; for questioning the dominant norms and supporting alternative visions in a context of censorship and conformity; and for his commitment to freedom of expression, community enrichment and nurturing younger generations.

SHOOTING and RECORDING |

MORINAGA Yasuhiro

Sound designer

Morinaga Yasuhiro is a sound designer/music director . He has worked on multiple projects in film, contemporary dance, installation, and the performing arts. Morinaga has been engaged in field works around Asia. His interest is to record and document ethnic music, aural communication and wildlife environment. By the use of recording materials, he creates different style of work. Morinaga runs a label for audiovisual publishing.

http://www.the-concrete.org

FACILITATOR |

NGUYEN Ban Ga

Ban Ga graduated from Vietnam University of Fine Arts. He co-founded the Hanoi Link, a group of video artists. Ban Ga also experiments with a combination of different formats in artmaking and performance art in a very honest way. In his latest work of “Salted” he stood at beach front for hours as the tide slowly came in, in a very silent way, relating about the connection between the land and the existence of a person. Through his works, Ban Ga shares his passion in collecting the moments of memory and nostalgia. He currently works at Doclab center, documentaries and video art at the Goethe Institute in Hanoi.

FACILITATOR |

PHUNG Tien Son

A university dropout, Phung Tien Son wanted to escape the confinement of the rigid and outdated Vietnamese education system to pursue a more experimental and liberal approach to art-making. War, heavy metal rock ’n’ roll, the history of Vietnam – these cover some of the main themes in Tien Son’s practice, currently experimented by the artist using various new media means including sound, computer-generated drawing, GPS and Google mapping.

FACILITATOR |

KANO Haruka

Born 1990, in Yokohama. In 2013, Kano Graduated from Faculty of Social Sciences at Hitotsubashi University, Japan (Graduating thesis “Memorizing Fukushima through Art – What can the government do?”). The same year, she enrolled in the Graduate School of Social Sciences, Institute for the Study of Global Issues at the same university. Her area of focus is Sociology and Anthropology. She worked as the student leader for the concert of Vietnam National Symphony Orchestra at Kanematsu Auditorium – Hitotsubshi University. Currently she is working on the theme of the history of Western classical music in Vietnam, and since 2014 is studying at Vietnam National University, Hanoi.

FACILITATOR |

YOSHIHAMA Syo

Yoshihama Syo was born in 1985, Okinawa, Japan. Yoshihama was graduated from Okinawa Prefectural University of Arts, majoring in painting. He founded “space tropical,” an alternative space in Naha City in 2011. His works explore the ways in which different levels of consciousness are able to capture different sounds. Yoshihama incorporates the act of playing music into his art and music practice. His projects include: improvisation (composed of various sounds collected from field recordings) and “Bion Orchestra,” a group concert that makes use of household goods.

FACILITATOR |

NONGYAO, Arnont

Arnont Nongyao (b. 1979) work and live in Chiangmai, Thailand. He is a multidisciplinary artist with a focus on sound art and film experimental and he is working with various and different media includes sound, video, installation, site specific, public art etc. Arnont’s work is engage with his interest in vibration; he works on diverse art experimental projects, vibration-related. Also he is Co-Director of CMC ( Chiang Mai Collective) with Thatchatham Silsupan, that is a sound art community group in Chiangmai.

FACILITATOR |

THATCHATHAM, Bigg

Bigg Thatchatham is a Chiang Mai-based composer and sound artist. He is interested in experimental auditory works that go beyond the classical concert setup–such as sound installation art, collective improvisation, intermedia works and participatory projects that use sound as a medium. Thatchatham is currently a lecturer at Department of Media Arts and Design, Faculty of Fine Arts, Chiang Mai University; and a co-director of Chiang Mai Collective (CMC)–an open-network for creative sound artists and practitioners. He received a Ph.D. in Music from University of California–Berkeley, studied music composition with Ken Ueno.