JOURNALS

Since my last Journal I have received the proposals of work for the exhibition from all the artists and I am so excited. In the collaborative proposals each partnership has synthesised the essence of either partner’s work into coherent and new contexts. Each of the artists has taken the opportunity to take risks, try something not attempted before. And of course the placing of some works in the natural environment surrounding Galleri F15 is really to extend the conventional territories of textile practice.

At the beginning of November Machiko Agano had a solo exhibition in Kyoto in which she proposed to show the first examples of her new work. This provided the focus for both Anniken and me to visit Japan – Anniken to complete the second stage of her exchange and I needed to visit the potential venues for the exhibition, to talk to Kyonori Shimada to discuss his experience of the second stage of his exchange and to Yuka Kawai to discuss her work for the exhibition. I was also extremely curious to see and experience Machiko’s new body of work in a full gallery installation.

Those of us who have had the extreme good fortune to watch the development of Machiko Agano’s artistic career over the last 20 years or more will know that she is an artist of great courage, always pushing at the boundaries of her practice. To my knowledge she has changed the nature of the outcomes of her work dramatically at least 3 times, and subtly many more times. And now she has challenged herself again, leapt outside her ‘comfort zone’ and produced probably her most controversial work to date. And I am delighted to report that the effect is hugely successful. In her new body of work Machiko has set out to confront us with the follies, vanities and iniquitous patterns of behaviour in contemporary society. Walking around and between the mirror coated and printed fabric columns is to be presented with an almost dizzying sensation not unlike a visit to the hall of mirrors in an old fashioned funfair or an Expressionist film set. Unsettling and distorted images are reflected back to the viewer, images that form disjunctions with the repeat patterns of mass consumption printed on the reverse of the mirrored fabric. Machiko’s ‘signature’ shadows cast on the walls and floors add to the viewer’s sense of dislocation and unease rather than, as in her past work, creating a sense of harmony.

In their previous partnership for Through the Surface both Machiko and Anniken realised that they were both taking the hidden forces of nature as their starting point. In this new body of work Machiko is, like Anniken, engaging in a more overt manner with the most fundamental and important environmental issues of our time.

Talking to Kiyonori Shimada and Yuka Kawai about the project and their proposals, both collaborative and individual, was extremely energising for me. Both have undertaken a huge commitment in the work they have proposed – Yuka in terms of the slowness of the technique she is using and Kiyonori in terms of the monumental scale of his work.

I began my visit in Tokyo, meeting up with the Cultural Attaché from the Norwegian Embassy in Japan, who, along with her staff, has been extremely interested and supportive of the Cultex project. I also visited the Museums that we are hoping will tour the exhibition. Gunma and Okayama Museums of Modern Art are fabulous examples of modern architecture and would provide a wonderful setting for the works; they would also create an interesting contrast with the ‘domestic’ environment of Galleri F15. Touring the exhibitions I am involved in is always fascinating for me, finding the ways in which the works respond to different textures, light and constellations; the new conversations that begin between works that had not been put together previously.
I came home from Japan full of energy and excitement, shortly I will re-visited Galleri F15 to discuss the exhibition installation and Christmas will be spent writing the catalogue!

Happy Christmas and looking forward to an exhilarating New Year.

Lesley Millar
Professor of Textile Culture
University for the Creative Arts