ドローイング・オーケストラ

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Drawing Orchestra will continue to stage sessions as a fluid collective - ie orchestra - in which new "drawers" will be invited from even wider-ranging fields for each performance, with members who have participated to date also appearing in different combinations.

An online drawing session spun simultaneously from pens in Japan and France

TOKYO CANAL LINKS is an art project that aims to connect the history and culture of the capital through its canals, to serve as a bridge between Tokyo as a Japanese city, and as a global metropolis. On this occasion, TOKYO CANAL LINKS is proud to present "Drawing Orchestra featuring Abdelkader Benchamma."

"Drawing Orchestra" is a drawing session project conceived by artist Hiraku Suzuki and designer Daijiro Ohara, with the first session being held on February 2, 2020, at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. Eight "drawers" from backgrounds spanning drawing and typography to poetry, photography, dance, performance, graffiti and digital media took part in a spectacular attempt to carve out a collaborative space via the acts of drawing, writing, scratching, cracking and tracing lines that elicited an enthusiastic response across arts genres.

This second "Drawing Orchestra" will welcome via visual link French-Algerian artist Abdelkader Benchamma, a longtime collaborator of Hiraku Suzuki's, as guest for a special "transnational" drawing session. Benchamma's black and white line drawings evoking dynamic natural phenomena have earned him a prominent place on the international contemporary drawing scene. On the Japanese side meanwhile are a team of five : Benchamma's ally Hiraku Suzuki, plus Daijiro Ohara, Sohei Nishino, Mineki Murata, and Yang02, all of whom took part in the previous session and now participating in a new experiment, with help from two spirited guest artists : calligrapher Kasetsu, and "alive painter" Akiko Nakayama.

The lines generated by these eight "drawers" will meet, overlap and draw each other out via video and sound. In today's world of stark divisions, how will the lines connect, and what kind of new co-creation arise, beyond geographical distance and subjective individuality? Don't miss this grand experiment to be conducted online and offline simultaneously.

From our base in Tennozu, Tokyo, we at TOKYO CANAL LINKS aim to create opportunities to disseminate the culture of Tokyo the international city, and interact, in ways that transcend genre and nationality. Our purpose in assembling the TOKYO CANAL LINKS program is to generate cultural currents following the flow of the city's canals. By using such initiatives to turn Tennozu into a cultural hub, we hope in turn to help make Tokyo a center for cultural tourism.

TOKYO CANAL LINKS 2021
"Drawing Orchestra featuring Abdelkader Benchamma"

March 12 (Fri) 2021 19:30 - 21:00
Venue: TERRADA ART COMPLEX Ⅱ 4F

Drawers :Hiraku Suzuki,Daijiro Ohara,Abdelkader Benchamma,Kasetsu,Akiko Nakayama,Sohei Nishino,Mineki Murata,Yang02, NAZE(special guest)

Visual technical support : Tomoya Kishimoto
Sound design :Toshihiko Kasai

Organizers : Warehouse TERRADA, TOKYO CANAL LINKS Executive Committee
Supported by : Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture, Arts Council Tokyo, The Sasakawa Franco - Japonaise Foundation, Granted by Association for Corporate Support of the Arts, Japan 2021 Fund for Creation of Society by the Arts and Culture

Drawing Orchestra vol.1
"MOT Annual 2019 Echo after Echo : Summoned Voices, New Shadows"

February 2 (Sun) 2020  15:00 - 16:30 
Venue : Museum of Contemporary Art Auditorium

Drawers :Hiraku SuzukiDaijiro OharaNaha KanieSohei NishinoSaori HalaMineki MurataYang02BIEN

Filming and editing : Yoi Suzuki
Sound design : WHITELIGHT
Visual technical support :Tomoya Kishimoto

Hiraku Suzuki
Artist. Born 1978. Engaging with the relationship between drawing and language as a consistent theme, Hiraku Suzuki's artistic practice encompasses two-dimensional works, sculpture, installations, murals, video, and performance. It explores the potential of expanding drawing in contemporary space-time through the act excavating latent linear phenomena in an environment. He lived and worked in the US in 2011–12 with a grant from the Asian Cultural Council, and in Germany in 2012–13 with a grant from the Pola Art Foundation. He has shown in exhibitions at a long list of prestigious museums throughout Japan and internationally including the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (Ishikawa, 2009), Mori Art Museum (Tokyo, 2010), Museum of Architecture in Wroclaw (Poland, 2015), Yinchuan Museum of Contemporary Art (China, 2016), MOCO Panacée (France, 2019), and Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (Tokyo, 2019–20), and has led the platform for alternative drawing research and practice "Drawing Tube" since 2016. Suzuki frequently collaborates with artists from other fields such musicians and poets, and has carried out many large-scale public projects. Published books of his works include GENGA (2010) and SILVER MARKER-Drawing as Excavating (2020).
hirakusuzuki.com

Daijiro Ohara
Born in 1978, Kanagawa, Japan. He is a designer based in Kanagawa, focuses on typography, lettering, drawing and editorial projects. He has also been actively engaged in self - initiated projects, searching for new perceptions of words and typographys through exhibitions, workshops and fieldwork. His some main projects include a kinetic typography "Typogravity" topicalizing gravity and graphic series "Ridge Line" reconstructing mountain photography and trekking maps by Takashi Homma. "TypogRAPy" is sound project with Shuta Hasunuma and Jun Kamoda a.k.a Illreme. Awarded JAGDA New Designer Award and TOKYO TDC Award.
oharadaijiro.com

Abdelkader Benchamma
Born in 1975 in Mazamet (France), Abdelkader Benchamma lives and works in Paris and Montpellier. Benchamma chooses to work in a sole medium: drawings. He adopts different approaches to the drawing process, sometimes moving across a sheet of paper with the meticulous strokes of an engraver, sometimes spreading over a wall with lavish gestures that appropriate the space. The matter escapes from the frame in a form of organic growth. Inspired by literature, philosophy, astrophysics and esoteric reflections, his works create visual scenarios that question our relationship to reality as they probe the frontiers of the invisible. His major exhibitions include his solo project at Drawing Center in New York (2015-2016), the 54th Venice Biennale (2015) and Sharjah Biennale (2017). Recipient of the Paris-based The Drawing Now Prize, he was also nominated for the Le Meurice Prize in 2015.
templon.com/new/artist.php?la=en&artist_id=357

Kasetsu
Born in 1975 in Kyoto, Japan. Calligrapher. Graduated from the Psychology Department of the Faculty of Letters of Ritsumeikan University. Based on detailed research into the origins of characters, she has been creating works that express the intersection of contemporary phenomena and a single Chinese character, as well as holding workshops in Japan and abroad on the theme of exploring the possibilities of expression through the use of characters. She has published ATO 跡 (Marks) (Between the Books), Sho No Sumika (Calligraphic Dwelling Place) (Akaaka), and others. She has also worked on a variety of book title calligraphy, including the collection Senso x Bungaku (War x Literature) (Shueisha) and Ishihara Shin'taro no Bungaku (The Literature of Ishihara Shin'taro) (Bungei Shunju).
kasetsuws.exblog.jp

Naha Kanie
Naha Kanie marked his debut as a poet in 2010 as winner of the Newcomer Prize from Eureka magazine. He was awarded the 21st Nakahara Chuya Prize in 2016 for his anthology of poems Yōisareta shokutaku [The Laid Table] (self-published, later Seidosha), and in 2017 participated in the "MOT Satellite" exhibition organized by Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo. In 2018, he was invited to the University of Iowa and a poetry festival in Finland to present live reading performances, and in 2020 participated in the Saitama Triennale, "Okuyamato Mind Trail" and "Utau Kenchiku" [Singing Architecture] (Archi-Depot). Pivoting around poetry, his activities in addition to writing essays and book reviews extend to book design, art, and performance.

Akiko Nakayama
Born in Japan, works in Tokyo Akiko Nakayama's work takes the classic medium of painting to unexpected and post-modern places. With a method she calls "Alive Painting," the Japanese artist brings her experimental music to life using vibrant, brilliant liquids that combine and wash away, meant to represent the natural growth, change and life cycle of all things on earth. Familiar shapes take form before melting into each other and taking on new characteristics, a type of living art that mirrors her abstract music. As her sounds mutate through textures soft and hard, resonant and soothing, so do her liquids mimic those sounds, creating a visual paradigm that represents some of the most mind-blowing effects you'd see at any festival-except they're happening in real life, right at her fingers.
akiko.co.jp

Sohei Nishino
Born in 1982. Nishino produces works based on his personal experiences obtained through walking and travel. His works are shown in major Museums and Festivals around the world including "A Different Kind of Order" at the Triennale of the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York, solo exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). He was selected as the Foam Talent 2013, Prix Pictet Space shortlist in 2017 and winner for MAST Foundation for photography award 2018.
soheinishino.net

Saori Hala
1988-, Tokyo. Saori Hala is a choreographer and performance artist who is based in Berlin, Tokyo, and Yokohama. She works with a diverse range of media, including movement, film, light, sound and drawings. Her work is connected through the constant presence of the inseparable relationship between time, void, and body. These elements are developed with human action in everyday occurrences and observations.
She started to dance since childhood and explored in fields between visual communication and performance art under her studying of design at Tokyo University of the Art and solo performance at HZT Berlin.
halasaori.com

BIEN
Born in Tokyo in 1993. BIEN's practice is rooted in drawing. BIEN's works have been inspired by street culture, animation and figurines. Based on expressions inherited from these cultures, BIEN produces a range of abstract paintings and installations. His work is an attempt at dissolving and reconstructing symbolic meanings. Major solo exhibitions include "WOOZY WIZARD" (BLOCKHOUSE, Tokyo, 2018), and group exhibitions include "Reborn-Art Festival" (Miyagi, 2017), "Rebellion Without Reason" (Watari-um Museum, Tokyo, 2018), and "PARALLEL ARCHEOLOGY" (OIL by Bijutsu Techo Gallery, Tokyo, 2020).

Mineki Murata
Born in Gunma, Japan in 1979. Graduated from the Sculpture department of Tama Art University in 2015. Murata's drawings and performances are guided by his spontaneous, primitive actions and the etymological interpretation of the Japanese word kaku, which brings together of four different meanings:writing (kaku:書く) his consciousness, drawing (kaku:描く) results, scratching (kaku:掻く) actions, and lacking (kaku:欠く) hidden potentials. Selected exhibitions and performnaces include "International Performance Art Biennale in Vancouver" open space (2019, Vancouver, Canada), "vision inside" at rin art association (2018, Gunma, Japan), "Aichi Triennale 2010" Choja-machi Site (2010, Aichi, Japan).
mineki-murata.com

yang02
Born in 1984, yang02 completed a master's degree majoring in media art at Tama Art University in 2009. His work is inspired by the potential for expression in the public sphere with a foundation in digital media. His practice inquiries into the independence of expression and reveals human physicality by entrusting the agency of actions to autonomous devices or external factors. "SENSELESS DRAWING BOT" won the New Face Award at the 15th and "Avatars" won the Excellence Award at the 21st at the Japan Media Arts Festival Art Division. His recent group exhibitions include the 20th DOMANI: "The Art of Tomorrow" (The National Art Center, Tokyo, 2018) and "The Breathing of Maps" (Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM], 2018). He won the Excellence Award in the Art Division at the 21st Japan Media Arts Festival (2018).
yang02.com

NAZE
Artist. Engaging with graffiti culture, he creates a variety of works such as drawings composed of tactile brush strokes, paintings with spray paint and collages, objects utilizing waste, and textile works. He is also a member of contact Gonzo.

Tomoya Kishimoto
Video enginner. He creates, directs, and coordinates the production of video and visual spaces realized using projectors. His work spans a broad array of projects, ranging from indoor and outdoor events to exhibitions of visual works and other productions. He is personally involved at every stage from developing the initial space design through to system development, installation & operations management, and projection of my visual materials.

Toshihiko Kasai
Sound engineer. An engineer who continues to approach sound regardless of location, from studio recording to live PA, distribution and stage. He has worked mainly with Shuta Hasunuma, Ichiko Aoba and Yoshihide Otomo, and others. His recent works include 22.2ch work for Miyu Hosoi "Lenna" (winner of the Newcomer's Award in the Art Division at the 23rd Japan Media Arts Festival) and 360° VR work for Tokumaru Shugo "canaria". He is a member of studio ATLIO.

WHITELIGHT
Specialized in multi-channelled sound system design, sound production and audio-product development, their practice aims to liberate souls from gravity. In the art field they work on deepening the acoustic environment of works by Akio Suzuki, Gozo Yoshimasu, and Yasunao Tone.