Storymakers Exhibition Catalogue
ONLINE CATALOGUE
Storymakers in Japanese Contemporary Art
Storymakers in Contemporary Japanese Art is a group exhibition that dives into a world of fantasy and wonder. Featuring the works of five contemporary artists from Japan, Storymakers evokes imagery from traditional fairy tales across cultures including The Little Match Girl and stories of interspecies relationships and transformations.
Published on the occasion of the Storymakers in Contemporary Japanese Art exhibition held at The Japan Foundation, Sydney from July 29, 2022 to January 23, 2023.
View the catalogue here
Header image: Masahiro Hasunuma, Bear Climbing, 2020. ©︎Masahiro Hasunuma
Contents
01. Foreword
03. Into the Intertextual Woods
Emily Wakeling
08. Storytelling and Artmaking for Multispecies Survival
Mayako Murai
11. Exhibition images
21. Works
33. On Translating Mimio: Four Essays and A Response
45. Interview with Fuyuhiko Takata
49. Retelling the Uncanny: Yūichi Higashionna in Conversation
55. List of works
56. Biographies
59. Acknowledgements
Editors
Yurika Sugie
Simonne Goran
Contributing Authors
Emily Wakeling
Mayako Murai
Translation
Mayako Murai
Philip Brophy
Naoko Mabon
Darryl Jingwen Wee
Design
Daryl Prondoso
Image Credits
Pages 28-32, 35-37 © The artist
Pages 11-23, 24-27, 42-44 © Docqment
ARTIST INTERVIEW
Interview with Masahiro Hasunuma
Celebrate the launch of the Storymakers in Contemporary Japanese Art online catalogue with an interview video featuring exhibiting artist Masahiro Hasunuma. In the video, Hasunuma discusses the inspirations behind his practice as well as his artwork Bear Climbing.
About The Artist
Masahiro Hasunuma
Masahiro Hasunuma (b.1981, Tokyo) is an artist and documentary photographer. He earned a doctor’s degree at Tokyo University of the Arts Artistic Anatomy Laboratory in 2010 with a study on self-portraits. Hasunuma trained at the German Film Museum as part of the Agency of Cultural Affairs’ Program of Overseas Study in 2016. Recent exhibitions include the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial (Niigata, 2015), Acquiring by counting (solo, gallery N, Aichi, 2019), and Prepare to prepare the story (solo, Toyama Prefectural Museum of Art and Design, 2020). He is currently based in Nagano Prefecture.
ARTIST INTERVIEW
Interview with Maki Ohkojima
In this interview video, exhibiting artist Maki Ohkojima discusses fairy tales, the inspirations behind her practice and her artworks featured in the Storymakers in Contemporary Japanese Art exhibition, The Forest Eats Me and The Forest Makes Me Its Seedbed.
About The Artist
Maki Ohkojima
Maki Ohkojima (b.1987, Tokyo) creates paintings and murals on the theme of ‘The World of Living Things’, depicting the intricately intertwined natural world and the endless chain of life on walls, floors, and ceilings in every direction. She stands in-between the contact zone of different things, and depicts the entangled aspects of life and death. Ohkojima internalises her own vision of animals, forests, fungi, and minerals, and seeks to tell a story through her paintings. Her major exhibitions include Bones, the solid sea inside of body. – petrified plants (HARUKAITO, Tokyo, 2019). Eye of whale (Aquarium de Paris, France, 2019) and Birds, sing the songs of the earth, through my bones (Dai-ichi Life Gallery, Tokyo, 2015).
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