Interview with Maya Yonesho

By Manjari Kaul

Maya Yonesho, born in Hyogo, Japan in 1965, is an animation filmmaker. She has studied Visual Design and Animation at Kyoto Saga University of Arts. She conducted the 3 day animation workshop at Japan Foundation, New Delhi as part of a project titled 'Daumenreise' which literally means 'thumb-travel'. Through workshops and collaborations in countries such as Vienna, Taiwan, Japan, Israel and now India (she conducted a workshop in Mumbai before coming to New Delhi), she has travelled with this filmmaking process that involves the natives of the country to pictorally represent what they consider to be the quintessential images of their country/city. Movement is created between the chosen images through animation and these images of the place merge into or in some cases emerge from each other.

Maya Yonesho

The following is an excerpt from an interview with Maya Yonesho:

Manjari Kaul: Daumenreise 27... how, why, when and where did it all start?

Maya Yonesho: It started in 1996. I was in Vienna and I wanted to make a film about the place. However, there were no animation studios available and all I had was a camera and a laptop. I wanted to do something that involved chatting with friends, enjoying food and drinks and making a film. I started working on this project as it included all three things on my wish list. This traveling animation project has been to Vienna, Taiwan, Croatia and Israel. Animation, in its wider meaning implies "happiness in movement".  

MK: What is the process that one goes through in your workshops?

MY: The main idea is to draw about the city. One picture is selected from the many drawings everyone creates and then people fill in with movement between these pictures. 

MK: Is there anything unique or different about the Delhi project?

MY: As this workshop is being organised by Japan Foundation people are interested in the relationship between India and Japan. In fact, one of the animation sequences is about a trip to Japan.

MK: Have you made any sketches to capture the sights and other sensations of Delhi?

MY: Yes, I made a trip to Old Delhi. ( Takes out her little cards of colorful sketches) the lotus temple, yogurt in a pot, an auto-rickshaw, the red fort and butter chicken. If I were to make other sketches they would be of weak dogs and tired people on the roads. 

MK: You screen your Delhi segment on the 28th of February, what after that?

MY: I plan to go to Indonesia and Japan after this, then Croatia, then Germany, may be someday to the Moon! There is a Japanese proverb that says- "When you are travelling, don't worry about making mistakes." I want to screen my film on the moon one day so people may watch it from Earth.

Photograph Courtesy Maya Yonesho

Animation Workshop

The Japan Foundation organized a 3 day workshop on Animation from 26th to 28th February, 2012 at The Japan Foundation. The workshop was conducted by filmmaker, Maya Yonesho. The workshop was aimed towards creating animation in and about one's local settings. Participants at the workshop engaged in all aspects of animation production, from storyboard creation to filming and special effects, using unique techniques for shooting hand-drawn animation in a real-life setting. The finished product created will synchronize sound, speech and settings.         

The participants were told to draw images that they associated with their city- buildings, food, transport, roads or other things quintessentially Delhi. After drawing their story board and then doing their sketches on small pieces of paper they took photographs of these against the background of what they had sketched. This workshop is part of Maya Yonesho's project called Daumenreise which has traveled to  Taiwan, Norway, Croatia, Israel and Poland. The filmmaker would like to one day want to take this project to the moon. 

About Maya Yonesho:

Maya Yonesho, who is active in Japan and overseas in the field of art animation. She has won the Excellence Award of the Agency for Cultural Affairs of Japan at the Japan Media Arts Festival in 1998 for “believe in it,” which synchronizes speech and sound. Part of her film “Üks Uks,” produced in 2005, was used in the trailer for the Tricky Women International Female Animation Festival in Austria. The film has also been exhibited and screened at the Kunsthalle Dusseldorf modern museum of art in Germany and the Design Museum in Estonia, among others. Thereafter, she produced “Wiener Wuast,” by filming hand-drawn animation with Vienna as the background. Workshops using the same technique have been held in Taiwan, Norway, Croatia, Israel, Poland and other countries.  

Japan at the World Book Fair, New Delhi

By Manjari Kaul

The Japan Foundation has put up a stall at the World Book Fair, New Delhi whose main focus is on promoting Manga comics. The Manga collection on display cover action, detective, dramas, romance and many more genres. A screen at the entrance of the stall shows anime films through the day.  

Machiko Yamamura

In an interview, Machiko Yamamura, the Assistant Director of Japan Foundation said that their aim was to introduce Manga, something that is hugely popular among the Japanese youth to the Indian youth. She added, “Everyone knows about Ikebana and Origami so we wanted to introduce those aspects of Japanese culture that are not that well known in India through the medium of this exhibition of books.” Talking about the reading habit among Japanese, she said that Japanese like to read a lot. They use it to unwind from their stressful work situations. Machiko Yamamura said she was curious to know the reactions of people, especially the youth visiting the book fair, to the Manga comics.

Alongside the comics there are small figurines of these Manga characters and their costumes on display at the Manga Cafe. The figurines exhibit the popularity of Manga in contemporary Japan and raise the interest of those who are gradually being ushered into the magical world of Manga through this exhibition.

For the uninitiated...

Manga is the Japanese word for 'comic' or 'cartoon'. In the west the word 'Manga' has come about to be used for cartoons or comics produced in Japan or by Japanese authors in Japanese language in a style that was developed in late 19th century.  

Photos courtesy: Safal Choudhary

Manga Cafe at the World Book Fair, New Delhi

Attention all book worms and Manga buffs! 

The place to be this weekend is the World Book Fair @ New Delhi where there will be a Japanese booth exhibiting a variety of books and catalogues giving a peek into Japanese culture. 

The books will include genres such as Japanese language, education, origami, manga, contemporary fiction, magazines.

The non-fiction category will include books on the social sciences,  tourism and photography. 

 

Dates: February 25-March 4, 2012

Venue: Pragati Maidan, New Delhi

Wall Art Festival

The Wall art festival takes place every year in Bihar. It is a unique art project to initiate cooperation between Indian villagers and the world.  The Japan Foundation invites the artists of the Wall art Festival and the exhibition to Delhi.

Event:


The Artists of the wall art festival will talk on the 24st of  February and the exhibition from 27th  February to 4th March, 2012 at the Japan Foundation.

The wall art festival is held at Niranjana Public Welfare School - a private elementary school in Sujata village in Bihar which is an art and social development project . The main objective of the project remains to convey the power of art in the developing area. Every year Indian and Japanese artists paint on the white walls of different classrooms which is then put as an exhibition.

About the artists : 


Alwar Balasubramaniam, works in Bangalore. He mainly works in forms such as OVC, Fiberglass, wood, plastic and has won Indian Sanskriti award

Rajesh Chaity Vangad, is a Warli artist from Thane, Maharashtra.

Ichiro Endo, who calls himself a "future artist" Yusuke Asai will be participating for the third time in the festival. He drew the entire classroom including the ceiling with soil taken from fields last year , will be  participating in the festival.

These artists are also invited in New Delhi to share their work and idea along with the vision of wall art festival through the Artist Talk. The main aim of the Wall art festival remains to hand over this art project to the local villagers after few years for it to become self sustainable.

Matter of Art & Death: A Review of Aki Sasamoto's performance 'Centrifugal March'

This is review was first published in ArtSlant
Centrifugal March, a Performance by Aki Sasamoto

by Manjari Kaul

Centrifugal March was performed by Aki Sasamoto at Lalit Kala Academy, 
On the 21^st of January as part of the exhibition, Omnilogue: Journey to the West

According to ancient Egyptian burial practice, the dead were buried with certain goods that were thought to accompany them through their afterlife. These objects could range from everyday goods such as pottery and grain to luxury items such as furniture and even jewels. In certain Mongolian Buddhist traditions, after death the body is taken away from the village and laid out in the open with a stone outline placed around it.  Once natural predators have consumed the body, the stone outline forms a referent to the dead person. In contemporary Buddhist traditions in Japan, the corpse is put on dry ice contained in a casket with a selection of items that the deceased was fond of such as candies or even cigarettes. Hence it feels almost universal that after a person's death certain objects become referents to the deceased one.  The nature of this transference may be so complete that it begins to feel that in her afterlife she is the rocking chair she would sit on while she told us tales of her childhood adventures or that he somehow is the black umbrella that he never ventured out without even on clear days.

(Aki Sasamoto, Photo by Daisuke Yamashiro; Courtesy of Kaisuke Yamashiro and the artist.)

When you are in the midst of a chaotic arrangement of unrelated objects suspended from the ceiling, strewn on the floor, or jutting out of the wall, you hardly imagine what appears to be a physics   experiment will turn out to be a deliberation on death and memory. Aki Sasamoto, in her performance,Centrifugal March, yokes Classical mechanics with the philosophy of death as she explains the phenomenon under whose influence “Humans become Objects with its Centrifugal Force.”(1)

Lumps of ice tied from the ceiling with colourful shoe-laces melt, water droplets falling into steel bowls placed below the ice. With the background score of the dripping water, Sasamoto darts across the room with her marker, at one point assuming the role of a school-teacher-like character, explaining centrifugal and centripetal force by drawing a spiral diagram on the wall.  At another moment in the performance, she gracefully steered a discomfortingly coffin-like cupboard with wheels around the room, breathlessly talking about death, funeral rituals and remembrance of the deceased through their possessions. Sasamoto engages her audience as she deliriously bores holes through a
 huge bar of ice and talks of the ritual of the body of the dead being preserved on ice. In her staccato movements around the room she threw a dart at the spiral diagram on the wall and almost hit an audience member.  Watching her furiously stab ice blobs arranged in the room, one gets the sense that she is not aware of her audience. Sasamoto talks of her grandmother's pearl necklace as something that she prizes and treasures after the relative's demise. The object becomes more than a memorial, it somehow takes the place of the person altogether.

(Aki Sasamoto, Photo by Daisuke Yamashiro; Courtesy of Kaisuke Yamashiro and the artist.)

In her research of death rituals in India, the U.S.-based Japanese artist visited crematoriums, doctors and astrologers to note the matter-of-fact way in which death is dealt with in the country. In her spiral diagram she seemed to depict her perception of this attitude through its origin in the common Hindu and Buddhist belief that life and death are an unending cycle. The performance worked as a meta-critical piece as it pointed towards the very nature of performance art -- a life lived twice over.  The characteristics of a live performance are akin to human life in Sasamoto's philosophy – lived through a mortal body and then embodied in a material object that becomes a referent to the deceased. A performance must be ephemeral, yet the second time around the performance is lived through memory. Thus performance is a kind of death. Aki Sasamoto's performance writes as epitaph for an art form that must perform its own death to be remembered ad infinitum.

1. Aki Sasamoto in her artist's statement on the performance piece, Centrifugal March.

Courtesy: www.artslant.com

When Japan Designed to Design: A Review of "Design Today 100"

By Manjari Kaul

In his curatorial note for Design 100 Hiroshi Kashigawi writes, "Upon arriving in an unfamiliar city, we notice its topography and vegetation and observe the characteristics of its natural environment. We also look at the buildings and equipment people use in everyday life to get an idea of the local culture."

If the central tenets of Japanese design corresponds to what defines Japanese culture then the Japanese can be said to be minimalists, efficient and futuristic. With the legacy of the best workmanship in the world and invention of several machines and everyday objects that have made our lives simpler and faster, the Japanese have have been torchbearers of the design industry.

Design 100, an exhibition of Japanese designs brings for the people of Delhi, carefully annotated exhibits of household goods like the Toshiba rice cooker to designs of cars like the Subaru 360. A majority of the exhibit are contemporary designs, with a few post World War II ones like the Nikon F camera and the Subaru 360 car. The Nikon F was Nikon's first SLR, a leader in 1959. The utility of the camera was doubled by an X-Ray mapping device to create its indelible mark in the area of camera design.

The Sony walkman and the Subaru 360 car have particular relevance in the Indian context. The Sony walkman achieved huge success in the Indian market and rose to become a much coveted commodity. In the explanation of the social, historical and economic relevance of the design of the small car, Subaru 360 is mentioned the fact that it was designed by the Fuji company in 1959, a precursor to the Maruti 800 (brought to India by Suzuki) that zipped through  Indian roads in the 80s.


The designs at the exhibition were sleek and stylish, yet achieving maximum utility through their cleverly crafted designs. These Japanese designs and everyday products contain a sensibility that has many a lesson in store for the Indian industry- most of all, the idea of a minutely detailed object that fits in the palm of your hand that unfolds to hold the awe and admiration of the world.


The exhibition, Design Today 100 is on at Japan Foundation, New Delhi till the 15th of January, 2012, from 12pm to 8pm.

Japanese Design Exhibit

To understand Japanese lifestyle and culture, The Japan Foundation holds the first ever  product design exhibition in New Delhi titled  Japanese Design Today 100. The exhibition is meant to give an insight into Japanese day to day life through design.

Date: 6^th to 15^th February

Venue: The Japan Foundation 

Time: Monday-Sunday 12 pm - 8 pm. 

 Professor Hiroshi Kashiwaga has curated 100 objects keeping in mind the diversity in various areas of everyday life, from digital to craft, from serious to humorous products.  Some of the products displayed are:  foldable chair, Riki stool, Qualia 016 is a small miniature digital camera, Telephone 610” has a very simple design for a Japanese telephone, butterfly stool, soya bottle, Tatami Mats etc. 

Hiroshi Kashiwagi is a Design Critic, Professor of Modern Design History at Musashino Art University. Born in 1946. Graduated from Musashino Art University. Engaged in an analysis of modernity as embodied in design. He has organized numerous exhibitions, including the Ikko Tanaka Retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, 2003 and Fantaisies Cybernetiques at The Japan Cultural Institute in Paris, 2003-2004. Publications include Modan dezain hihan（Critique of Modern Design）, Iwanami Shoten, 2003, “Shikiri” no Bunkaron (Cultural Study of "Partations"), Kodanshsya, 2004. A member of the exhibit selection committee for the traveling exhibition, Japanese Design Today 100, 2004, organized by the Japan Foundation.

 

 

Reverie in Tokyo at 13 BCD

Cine Darbaar and The Japan Foundation launched a cinematheque in Delhi dedicated to cinema on 1st of February, 2012 called 13BCD.

 If you descend the steps of the basement of 13, Hauz Khas Village you will dream the dream of a Tokyo yet to be from a view finder of a Tokyo past. The opening exhibition called Tokyo is Dreaming juxtaposes a series of mute videos with visual-less sound that makes you experience the sights and sounds of the city through the lens of filmmakers such as Wim Wenders, Chris Marker, Michel Gondry, Ozu, Hou Hsiao Hsien and Sophie Coppola. All these filmmakers who have reacted to Tokyo as both insiders and outsiders take us on a journey through streets, homes and the transit system in Tokyo. 

Through the landscape of the city skyscrapers, in and out of their homes, travelling in trains, the humdrum of everyday life, the catastrophic earthquakes – Tokyo Dreaming is the experience of urban life. The quaint sense of meaninglessness, the half smile of a stranger on the road, the carry-over of the trauma of the holocaust, the technologizing of life, the cultural differences from the domineering 'west' are weaved together in the series of images and sound. It is a chronicle of the city rather than a single narrative indicating the multiplicity of narratives that a city tells all at once.

13 BCD is meant to be a space that can be used by young movie goers to connect and engage in collaborative projects like exhibitions and screenings. Through regular film screenings and discussions the cinematheque aims to create an awareness about Japanese culture through its films, contemporary and past.

The exhibition, Tokyo is Dreaming will be on till the 15th of February, 2012. 

Venue: 13, Basement, Hauz Khas Village 

Timings: 12noon - 8pm, (Monday- Saturday)