Japanese Storytelling

by Yuki Miyake at White Conduit Projects

White Conduit Projects opened in November 2014 in Islington, central London. It is an independent gallery for contemporary art exhibition work by Japanese, UK and international artists. It showcases a variety of media. The gallery specialises in solo presentations showcasing works concerned with Japanese related subjects. We are just off the fruit and vegetable stands of Chapel Market. It’s always buzzing with locals. Islington is very diverse in terms of class and race, and is a culturally matured city spot. In our time here we have been honoured to exhibit a selection of photographic media by women artists. We open the archives to share some of this work with WE ARE Magazine along with our most recent exhibtion.

Visit www.whiteconduitprojects.uk for more information.

Emptiness no Other than Form, printed on archival Hahnemuhle rice paper and mounted on screen with mulberry, cedar wood, and silk. Daitoku-ji, Obai-in, Kyoto © Karen Knorr

by Karen Knorr, HonFRPS Solo Exhibition in Kyoto Japan 11th April to 11th May 2018 in Kyoto 18th January to 27th January 2019 in London

Karen Knorr has been working on Japanese themes since 2012. It was her former collaborator, Olivier Richon, who introduced us to her.

We had Karen’s first show in 2016 with a paper screen designer, Yukari Sato. This led us to be involved in further expanding Karen’s Japanese series. In 2017 Karen was invited into Obai-in temple in Kyoto by calligrapher and head priest Tagen Kobayashi. It was in April 2018 that she first exhibited her work as free-standing Byobu screens, in a solo exhibition at the Daitoku-ji complex in Obai-in temple. At the same time, Karen had a joint show with Shiho Kito at Zuium-un in Kyoto.

These screens were made of cedar wood, mulberry, rice paper and silk, and combined with photographs printed on rice paper. These traditional screens were made by local artisan Heiando, in collaboration with Karen. The photographs are transformed into one-off unique handmade objects with the aid of Japanese master craft techniques. We have presented this Once Only Only Once series in the UK. The title of this exhibition evokes a dedication written by Kobayashi upon their first meeting.

Every Encounter Treasured, printed on archival Hahnemuhle rice paper and mounted on screen with mulberry, cedar wood, and silk. Daitoku-ji, Obai-in, Kyoto © Karen Knorr

Intoxicated by the Moonlight, Daitoku-ji, Obai-in, Kyoto © Karen Knorr

We Are Going To Need Some More Coffee; City Vignettes from Tokyo and Buenos Aires

by Maria Guerberof 27th September to 28th October 2018

Photo by © Maria Guerberof

During the Kyoto stay, l met Maria Guerberof who had been nominated for a KG + Award Kyotographie in 2018. Guerberof is originally from Argentina, Buenos Aires. She and her family had no choice but to leave Buenos Aires, escaping its political chaos. She is now based in the UK and France.

City Vignettes is a photographic project by Guerberof. Her series captures her daily wanderings around the city of Buenos Aires during the political and economic collapse of Argentina in 2001. This also comprises Tokyo. Through photographs, Guerberof reveals the commonalities between the chaotic city of economic collapse and the opposite city of the nationwide middle-class Tokyo. Her works present an ominous scene of power in capitalism.

Photos by © Maria Guerberof

Photo by © Maria Guerberof

by Wiebke Leister 20th October to 9th November 2016

Echoes and Transformations looks at the boundaries between embalming and enmasking: being in a skin and under a skin; in and under a mask; looking at a mask and seeing through a mask as something that equally changes one’s gait and one’s voice while playing with sensations of displacement and transformation. The work treats the human face less as a façade but as an object that – even though central to our understanding of what it means to be human – is only ever in the process of approximating a subject: being filled by a subject; worn on the face of a subject.

The main reference of Echoes and Transformations has been the teaching of Japanese Noh theatre, in which the mask works as an extension of the actor: nuanced like a face, while the face itself is shown as an impassive mask. When the mask is placed onto the face, the actor becomes enmasked while the mask has become enfaced. The work meditates on the moment in space and time when the mask folds onto the face and how a relationship between object and actor is established across the gap between two surfaces. The images seek to visually translate this sense of a living object into photography.

Performance with NaoKo TakaHashi, 20 Oct 2016

As a part of the exhibition, 15 minute performance pieces with acoustic sound - various traditional flutes and Kotsuzumi drum by Kaho Aso and Naoko Takahashi - exploring language with electronic sounds coincide with a de-collaged publication by Leister.

Photo collage 2016 Two double-sided digital prints, tricolour 70 x 50 cm, individually folded with certificate of Authenticity Performed publication edition of 40 © Wieble Leister

Photo by © Wiebke Leister

by Shino Yanai 11th September to 15th October 2016

Blue Passages - Installation at White Conduit Projects

The exhibition documents in photography and video Yanai’s recent performance in which she followed the perilous mountain route between France and Spain that was made by the German Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin in his doomed attempt to escape the Nazis in 1940.

The show focuses on ideas of migration, ethics, and personal and public history. It draws inspiration from Walter Benjamin’s life and from the works of Israeli sculptor Dani Karavan. Yanai’s performance expresses her distrust of the modern world and her anxieties about the concepts of race and nationhood. The flaming torch is a symbol of hope and a call for unity and peace.

by Helen Maurer and Angela Moore 30th January to 27th February 2022

Helen Maurer and Angela Moore’s collaborative work gives shape to certain natural elements that are immaterial and ‘difficult to grab’. The artists combine the visual potential of light, water, and glass to create site-specific installations on the riverbank, made of colour and sand and, as with the metamorphosis of Yōkai creatures, their work changes in appearance. Photography plays a crucial role in this art due to its ephemeral and transient state.

In this series, light trespasses beyond the glass frames to create painted shapes on the sand that are transformed in response to their surroundings. Their photograph shows at its height, marking the moment when the work is most flourishing. It's like a metaphor for life. The exhibition is inspired by Kazuo Ishiguro's In A Pale View of Hills novel, which symbolises the river as a decade and as rebirth. These exhibitions are based on socially shared subjects, and at the same time showcase works that have been visually analysed with the artist's private stories. The subjects and motives may be of interest in Japanese traditional culture; a cross between the artist's own upbringing and the surrounding world history, or something to do with Japanese myth - a collection of works in which various media are conducted in photographs.

Golden Duck by © Angela Moore and Helen Maurer

Spirit Plane by © Angela Moore and Helen Maurer