JOURNALS

It is only a few days since Machiko left Oslo and returned to Kyoto. Our days together were few, but intense, efficient and very inspiring. My mind is buzzing with energy and inspiration, and I am amazed how far we actually managed to come in our conversations and exchange of ideas for our partnership.
 
Machiko left me one sample of her new venture into working with mirror sheets and digital textile print. This will be very helpful to have while developing and discussing our collaboration further over emails, until we meet again in Kyoto in November. Last time we started a collaboration we spent three months together in Japan which enabled our working relationship to develop over time. Now we have only two weeks together, divided on one week in Oslo and one in Kyoto. The rest of the collaboration will happen over the internet and during the exhibition installations in the CULTEX tour. I felt both of us had the same “efficient” attitude that we needed to take advantage of the few days we had together and get right down to “business”, already discussing details and concrete ideas on our first studio meeting. Time will show how close to these early discussions and plans we finally end up. Anyhow, the main thing now is that the process and collaboration have begun and with ideas that I could only dream of would appear so early on in the partnership. Of course Machiko and I have known each other since 2003, but four years have passed since we last worked together, and in that time we have both gained new experiences and developed personally and artistically, so there wasn’t any guarantee that we had developed in a direction that would be easy to find mutual ground to build our partnership from.

But we have been in luck! Machiko and I have perhaps more than ever a mutual ground to work from, which is highly inspiring. Both are engaged, from different perspectives, in the environmental challenges our world is faced with. Machiko has a critical view about a society that is dominated by mass production, a use and throw-away mentality and the effect modern lifestyle has on the nature and people’s mentality and personality. She talks about a longing to feel close to nature and something natural, rather than the plastic and man-made society we all live in and also is part of. I feel a central word in Machiko’s comment to the modern society is LONGING. I don’t feel that she is necessarily longing to “go back” or to move away from the modern society and all its comfort and possibilities, but perhaps a need to raise an awareness of how we live. Also I see her thoughts and work as an attempt to make us search for and find a balance between the natural and the man-made, to take better care and show more respect for the two worlds

My work looks at what today’s environmental changes do to the development and conservation of the human, natural and organic life. I investigate how this affects the circle of life in plant, insects, animals and humans. We read almost daily how new diseases develop, how cells, insects and plant mutate. We read about new species that appear and plants, animals and insects that die out. The cycle of life seem more unpredictable than ever and species, viruses, illnesses mix and re-create into unknown forms. I mentioned that Machiko expresses a longing for nature in her work. I on the other hand live close to nature and feel part of it on a daily basis. My perspective is more the fear for how long it is possible to feel surrounded by the nature as we know it. Will my son’s children or grandchildren be able to enjoy waking up to birds singing, pick berries in the nearby forest or in their garden, be surrounded by the same flowers, butterflies and bees that we have known for centuries and taken for granted, and will they be able to enjoy the outdoors without having asthma or allergy problems that more and more people seem to suffer from each year.

It is a complex and complicated field that Machiko and I have moved into. Our collaboration will explore a small part of this huge area, finding a way of expressing our reflections, and hopefully make a little contribution to the overall discussion and people’s environmental awareness.

Machiko and my conversations in Oslo developed quickly into a direction discussing and planning how we could use this partnership to create a collaborative site-sensitive installation, first shown on the outside grounds of Gallery F15. This will however, take a very flexible form, making it possible to produce our various modules while we are apart and change how we put the installation together in each place it will be installed. This approach will keep both our partnership and installation in constant development and alive throughout the whole exhibition. It will be an on-going life cycle…