• <Iteke> itekehemkes.com
• <Tjitske> tjitskehemkes.com

The sisters Iteke (1984) and Tjitske Hemkes (1980) were born into an artistic family. Iteke got her bachelor degree in Fashion & Textiles and Graphic Design at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. Currently she works in the areas of illustration, film and performance. Tjitske graduated at the Design Academy in Eindhoven and now works as a freelance designer in Amsterdam. Her work can be described as falling in between art and design, ranging from video, fashion, performance and product design.

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京町家アーティスト・イン・レジデンス2015での京都滞在にむけて、イテケとチツケの2人から意気込みをこめたメッセージが届いています。

A message by Iteke and Tjitske Hemkes about her ambitions when participating in the Kyoto Machiya AIR Project.

私たちは違う大学に通い、それぞれ独立したキャリアを歩んで来ましたが、次第に二人で作品を制作を始めるようになりました。子どもの頃から両親の影響で多様な物語や想像の世界を知り、シュルレアリスムに夢中になるなど詩的な世界観に興味を持ち、またそれを創作に生かしてきました。

私たちは同じことに魅力を感じるのですが、日本に興味を持ったこともその一つでした。日本と西洋では似いているところもありながら全く異なるところも多いので、日本を訪れ滞在する中で、驚いたり、心が揺れ動く瞬間があるかもしれません。ただ、それはアーティストとして創造することに大きく作用する力になると信じています。

「京町家アーティスト・イン・レジデンス」をきっかけに、近年多くの京町家が取り壊されている現状を知り、とても驚きました。今回、私たちのプロジェクトでは、アートの視点を通してこの素晴らしい建物の保存への意識を高めていきたいと考えています。京都に滞在する中で出会う「文化の違い」や「国境を越えた人と人の共通点」などから色々なインスピレーションを受けて、京町家の新しい解釈を考察していきたいと考えています。

そして、京都に滞在する中で、周辺の地域との関わりや京町家の社会的な背景を考慮し、様々な表現方法を試みながら作品を制作していきたいと思います。京都で見つけた現地の材料を使い、私たちが感じたこと、発見したことを「未だない京町家の魅力」として表現出来るのをとても楽しみにしています。

また、日本の方々との貴重な出会いや触れ合いを通じて「視点の違い」を理解することで互いに学びあうという、豊かな体験を共有していきたいです。

イテケとチツケ・ヘムケス

We have developed our artistic careers independently from each other, but lately there has been a growing desire to collaborate again, just like when we where kids. We used to create fantasy worlds with all kinds of materials and our parents would let us play until very late at night because they didn’t want to stop our creative process. During our childhood we developed a similar poetic worldview and where both very intrigued by surrealism. We knew for a long time we wanted to explore Japan together, because we share the same fascinations. Japan is quite similar and at the same time completely different from western society, so we expect to get surprised, confused and inspired, which will lead to a boost in our artistic development.

When we found out about the Kyoto Machiya Air we where shocked to hear that so many Machiyas are being demolished. We felt we wanted to help raise awareness for the preservation of these amazing buildings by putting an artistic focus on it with our project. We want to get inspired by the cultural differences and human similarities that we come across during our stay and we want to translate that to a new interpretation of the Machiya. How we will do that is a surprise for us as well.

We want to investigate living in one first and reflect on its surroundings and on its social context. Then we will have many ways of expressing ourselves artistically because of our multidisciplinary way of working. We are looking forward to experiment with local materials that we will find in Kyoto, analyse our impressions and turn all our findings into a new world inside our Machiya. Our intention is to establish valuable interactions with Japanese people so that we can both be enriched by each others views.

Iteke and Tjitske Hemkes

Sculptures, drawings, visuals arts.
Jikke van Loon was born in 1971 in Den Haag, the Nederlands. She is a visual artist who takes the human mind as a point of departure in her sculptures, drawings and installation artworks. Lately especially values in Japanese culture and arts such as ‘contemplation’ and ‘imperfectness’ catch her attention. During this Artist in Residence Program, she aims to deepen her insight into these values, possibly using these as a means of expression in her own works as well.

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京町家アーティスト・イン・レジデンスでの京都滞在にむけて、ジッケ・ファン・ローンから意気込みをこめたメッセージが届いています。

A message by Jikke van Loon about her ambitions when participating in the Kyoto Machiya AIR Project.

Jikke van Loon

The Art of Attention and other Uncomfortable Aspects!

For long I have been interested in Japanese culture and arts.
Attention, awareness, concentration, contemplation, the insignificant and the imperfect have manifested itself strongly in the arts, architecture, culture of Japan.
In Dutch/ Western art I find these values undiscussed, underexposed, maybe even neglected or denied. I think these are important values that I would like to experience through participating in Kyoto Machiya AIR.

As a visual artist I am working in the field of sculpture, installation and sculptural drawing. The human mind, our way of thinking is my point of departure and exploration. In my work certain aforementioned principles such as concentration as well as the ‘insignificant’ and ‘non-permanence’ are more and more part of my field of interest, and expression. I would like to deepen my insight into these matters and see if I can express them more freely in my work in a direct or performative way.

My idea is to start an exchange and mutual learning of (artistic) values by inviting, and visiting people from Kyoto, arranging ‘still-lives’, little performances and hostings in my Kyoto machiya house.
Within the architecture of the machiya I want to explore the places that might carry the aforementioned values. How have values such as attention, contemplation and ‘the imperfect’ manifested themselves in the design of the machiya and in the way of living in machiya?

I would like to organize ‘visual’ conversations through arranging Dutch and Japanese still life pieces and installations. How do the Dutch floral arrangements and Dutch still life arrangements relate to the values expressed in the tokonoma (alcove typical to machiya)? I would like to ‘work’ with people from the Kyoto community, not just by talking, but by exchanging through ‘hands’: by working, absorbing and looking together.

Thus I aim to gain a mutual insight and understanding of the principals of attention and contemplation. Also I would like to explore the usage and meaning of the tokonoma and maybe other particular ‘places’ of attention in the machiya. I hope I will meet you at one point during my stay in Kyoto. Hereby I am inviting you to my studio to exchange minds and spirits!

I also would love to meet ‘Masters of Attention’ , such as Masters in the raking of Zen gardens, Masters in pottery or jiki, or Masters in the act of singing or philosophy.
I would like to invent or find Dutch words for the values explored, as so far I feel that these words have no counterpart in the Dutch language and culture. For example, how would one translate concepts such as ‘Ma’ or Wabi Sabi in Dutch? By working on the arrangements, I aim to find certain translations for these concepts.

I am glad to have given this opportunity and very much looking forward to meeting you all. I Hope to see you in autumn!

Jikke van Loon

「Tsunami Monument Oslo」(2006)
2005年に発生したオスロの津波の被害者を祭るモニュメント的な作品。このインスタレーション作品では、ノルウェイ オスロの広い海岸に繊細に彫られた木の形の大型彫刻が堂々とそびえている。

A memorial artwork that commemorates the victims of the 2005 tsunami in Oslo (Norway). This installation artwork consists of a refined constellation of uprooted trees rising from the broad coastline to the sky.

「The full Solution part 1」(2014)
様々なかたちをした小さい彫刻作品の一つ一つは物語の断片を象徴する。こうした小さな彫刻が広いスペースに配置されることで、大きなインスタレーションとして新しい意味や物語が想起される。オランダのハーレムでのアーティスト・イン・レジデンスで制作された作品。

A work consisting of various small sculptures, each symbolizing deconstructed parts of stories. Because these small sculptures became part of a larger space, these objects started to gain new meanings and narratives. These works were created during Jikke’s participation in an Artist in Residence Project in Haarlem (the Netherlands).

Isjah Koppejan works at the cutting edge of research, innovation and culture. She is currently working as a freelance consultant and researcher and as a facilitator and developer associated ArtechLab to AKI ArteZ. Isjah was fascinated by both the ‘old’ and ‘new’ in Japanese culture and will focus on this during the residency. During her travels to Japan In Kyoto, it will, on the one hand, to study the recent developments surrounding the preservation and development of traditional houses. And on the other side to recent trends and developments in Japan. By immersing themselves to introduce residents and experts, interviews the daily life of Kyoto, under and through living in a machiya firsthand to experience it will bring new challenges and opportunities for the preservation of the machiya’s in the limelight.

Website: http://isjah.com/

Artech Lab.

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“The soul of the city” * captured in Sound. Cesi Nolten would like to capture the soul of the city in sound – record typical places of Kyoto in sound and Collage it in a Soundscape (5.1 – surround sound). This is going to be presented in an interactive sound installation. So through the number of people in the room / or depending on where they are located, Cesi wants to let you experience Kyoto by this interactive soundscape and make you part of the installation through the movement sensors.

Website: http://www.cesium.nu

Facebook: Cesium

Soundcloud: Cesi.um

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