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Tuesday 25 July '06 (from Seven Samurai)
We’re all sitting under the Snow Centre waiting for our ‘performance’ in about an hour – which, it seems, will be the launch of the actual Triennial. Kumagai (from Art Front who are running it) is sitting next to me testing his mic for the ‘eurovision song contest’ style simultaneous translation he’s meant to be doing. It’s hard to tell what he thinks about our line up, despite our definite weirdness he’s maybe getting into the idea in a very low key Japanese way …
No matter how you organize these affairs there always seems to be a lot of sitting about and cable twiddling before hand, interspersed with ear-splitting sounds from the PA. The last hour sends everyone into their own particular ‘auto-performance-paranoia’ behavior pattern. As I blog (!) Tim and Jamie are still tweaking the ultimate audio/visual arrangements; Barney is strumming an impromptu acoustic set, resplendent in Hawaiian shirt and balloon pants, he might be the male rival for Karen in her pre-performance grooming routine. Ben is relaxing after rocking out during rehearsal and Marcus seems to at last be giving us a break from ‘checking the levels’ on his radio mic animal noises, maybe he’s brushing his wig.
Having dreaded the communal living conditions at the house I have been surprised on two counts – one that they were ‘worse’ than I could have imagined (4 rooms, 9 people, sliding thin walls) – but two, that it’s been OK. More than that I’ve actually really enjoyed hanging out with the 7 Samurai, and despite being totally on top of each other it’s been great - and I’m now slightly sad that we’ll all be splitting up for solo rooms in our Tokyo hotel week.
The other surprise has been tonight’s performance. When Karen and I arrived at the start of this week – jet lagged and ‘Tudor tired’ from our recent month long stay in 1578 – Adam’s suggestion that we’d all be performing on stage in one week, all singing, all dancing - filled me with horror. My singing is erratic at best and if you’d told me before I’d got on the plane we’d be doing harmonized backing vocals I’d have probably just lay on the floor at Heathrow. Now with an hour to go & the dress rehearsal under our belts, I find myself suggesting that Karen and I join Ben on stage to form a Tudor backing group for the ‘Stairway to Heaven’ freak out – we’ll all have white face make-up on after all … 
Tuesday 25 July '06 (from Seven Samurai)
Before we came back to Tokyo, the Toge villagers chose a new rice label from a selection all the artists had produced for them- the new label will go on the 300 bags of elite rice that Grizedale has agreed to sell on their behalf - starting here in Tokyo at the weekend's Ikebukero Festival. I'm genuinely excited that they chose a hybrid of Aiko's (a graphic of a single rice grain with some snazzy Japanese text) and mine (a cutesy painting of an idealised, almost Swiss stylee local house). What now remains to be done is to somehow fuse the two together and get a run of them printed in time for the big sell at the weekend
Tuesday 25 July '06 (from Seven Samurai)
We're in Tokyo now and I'm looking forward to a visit to 'Cat World' at the top of Tokyo's craft mega-mall ... back in Toge though, when we first arrived & under the thin disguise of some project research I joined the group trip to the Tokamatchi Mega Mall in search of a pet shop. The Japanese evidently have a different attitude to the UK in relation to live pet sales … in the middle of Mushasi (the massive hardware/in fact ‘anything you really might want’ emporium) are live pets for sale. Their large price tags are somewhat at odds with their casual distribution amongst the aisles of make-up And bar-b-que equipment.
The brown dog was in a small open pen, literally in amongst the rows of pet food, behind him sat rows of cats, rabbits, ferrets, stag beetles, mice etc etc.
Behind all of these sat a glass-fronted salon where the local pet elite were being washed and blow-dried!
What I really liked was the above aisle pictorial signage - where you’d normally expect to see DIY, food, toiletries & gardening pictures here you could also see pets.
Monday 24 July '06 (from Seven Samurai)
18/7/06
After four days of non-stop rain, there seems to be a hiatus in the downpour. Nina and I wander up and down the steep roads which connect the few houses of Toge – no pun intended – together. Still suspicious of the weather, we wear oversized rubber boots and waterproof jackets, and take with us a transparent plastic envelope in which we carry an A4 of translated sentences like “This is a typical English house”. In my jacket pocket I carry a Lilliput Lane model house which I periodically pull out and hold up against the backdrop of the traditional houses to explain what we’re trying to do. It’s a bit like that scene from Father Ted with the cows faraway and near.
Onsen nonsense
The 7 Samurai boys have photographed themselves – from behind – in the onsen (hot baths). Perhaps Nina, Aiko and I need to do the partner picture.
23/7/06
The ‘open house’ afternoon we hold in the village clashes with a local celebration, or perhaps we haven’t exactly marketed the event brilliantly. On the other hand, holding the event in my own village – Coniston – wouldn’t exactly over-excite the locals either.
Despite Barnaby’s projector dying, the cleared-out house looks rather good with our little installations scattered throughout. A cluster of us remain for some time in the back bedroom among the packed away furniture, designing and printing labels, tripping over shared power leads, chatting in cod-Japanese and generally having a laugh. I have enjoyed the communal domesticity in the house much more than I had expected to - the superior-quality running jokes more than compensate for the lack of a clean towel when you want one.
Anyway, a few villagers appear and seem to appreciate what we have done. The air is full of the aroma of Adam’s cooking for the evening: rabbit ravioli (actually hare, which seems to be called rabbit here – what we call rabbit is an animal that doesn’t exist here), moussaka, a new biscuit called the Toge frog is being baked in a brand new mini-oven.
Other artists from the Triennale make up most of our audience, and they seem surprisingly appreciative, considering how different our approach has been to theirs. One Australian artist working here has recommended a local craftswoman who teaches at the university, who might have the model-making skills we need to start our ‘Toge home’ collectable project.
Later we attend the communal dinner in the village hall with our European foods – I help make cucumber sandwiches and tzatziki (cucumber dip – unpopular I think due to incompatibility with chopsticks). Apart from Adam’s ravioli it’s totally vegetarian, which is incredible considering there are probably over 40 different dishes on the low tables. I think of the English equivalent – a nightmarish spread of shop-bought flans, cheese sandwiches and sodden salads.
The village women are warm but clearly feel more comfortable apart from the menfolk and us. They cluster near the kitchen, even during the evening entertainment (Marcus Coates’ shaman routine) and I wonder how we will be able to engage with them when we return to the village the week after next, without the familiar faces of the 5 male samurai.
Tuesday 18 July '06 (from Seven Samurai)
今日の朝ゴミ出し。ちょうど、まなみちゃんがバス停でスクールバスを待っている所だったので手を振った。家に帰り、朝御飯を食べてから、皆で直弘さんのお宅にお邪魔した。朝早くに光子さんが「６時半頃に、直弘さんから家に来るように伝えてって電話があったから行ってね」と伝えに来てくれた。直弘さんは昨日撮ったHPの写真をくださった。
アダム達は十日町に用事があったので帰ったが、私は残って直弘さん夫妻のお話を聞いた。過疎についてお伺いすると「村の人は危機感を持っている」とのことだ。では村にニューフェイスが来た場合、どのような感じになるかという質問には「１年か２年はもしかしたら違和感があるかもしれない。しかし話をしたり、一緒にお酒を飲んだりしているうちに溶け込むと思うよ」とのお答えだった。峠村に住むということは農業をするということだ。もちろん農業についてのアドバイスを皆するだろうと直弘さんはおっしゃった。しかし、やる気のある人でないと村も困ってしまう。直弘さんが知っている村に、農業をしたいと引っ越してきた人がいて、村中で歓迎したが、本人は農業は向いていないと思ったのか去ってしまい、村の人達は大変寂しい思いをしたそうだ。峠のような村では隣近所、集落自体の繋がりはとても密だ。都会での引っ越しとは訳が違う。やはり人付き合いが好きな人でないと難しいだろうと思う。
過疎問題は峠村だけではない。峠村の近くにあった濁という集落はなくなった。すべての家が引っ越してしまったのだが、やはりこの場所がいいという人が戻ってきて、掘建て小屋を立てたそうだ。「戻ってきて！大歓迎」という看板も出ているらしい。直弘さんの話によると、この方は春や夏にやってきては、山菜を取ってきて皆に振る舞ったり、ここで同窓会を開いたりしているそうだ。同窓生には大工さんや布団屋さんもいるので、集まる時には皆で持ち寄って色々と楽しんでいるそうだ。やはり生まれ育った場所が一番ということなんだろう。
今年の春に上越市で農家で会社を作ろうという案が出されたそうだ。直弘さんはそれを聞いて「峠村でも挑戦してみるのもいいと思ってるんだよ」と話してくださった。農業を始めようと引っ越してくるのには荷が重すぎる。興味のある人に、給料制で手伝ってもらい、もしも農業で食べていきたいと思う人がいれば峠に住み、農業を自分で始めればいいという考えだそうだ。これはどちらにとってもリスクが少ない、いいアイディアだと思った。
Tuesday 18 July '06 (from Seven Samurai)
All around the house the tempo increases in time with the rain, it's an almost seamless garment of torrential downpour. All around us half drowned students slave in the mud planting a kind of pseudo English garden look, a mundane collection of bedding plants, it’s reminiscent of the Seven Samurai battle scenes. At the scratch house (a traditional building that is being arted up) 20 students lie on their sides tap taping away making tiny directional cuts into the interior surfaces. It creates an effect that I am sure is available on photoshop. These students have been working at this for 2 years, they work a 12 hour day and sleep on the village hall floor - despite the fact that the house they are working on is equipped with a luxury German kitchen and 2 bathrooms.
Down in the old school Junko and the village up the tempo on the flower making and upstairs (above us) the newly finished luxury apartments wait vacantly for their decorative screens. The artist then clumping around half the night, sanding and listening to the radio (the carpenter was far quieter) as she trys to decide what blob should go where in her Ikea styled installation that I have a very strong suspicion can be bought of the shelf direct from Ikea.
Our own tempo has changed as we prepare to perform at the weekend. Barnaby paints like a sixth former who has just discovered the 'joy of art', Jamie maintains his grueling routine to the point where we all feel the need to physically tear him of his machine. Everyone else works pretty much all the time unless I arrange a ‘time out’ Onsen or 'dinner out' break. And still we all feel guilty that we are not doing enough. The Tokyo hotel is looking more and more appealing despite the packed schedule of performances ahead.
Tuesday 18 July '06 (from Seven Samurai)
Due to arriving rather later than the other Samurai in Toge, we were able to move straight into some rather high-scoring pertinent networking on our first day of work here … riding on the back of Adam and Aiko’s extensive local research!
My casual enquiry as to who owned the rather cute looking houses just over the valley, landed us with an invitation to visit the owners.
Karl Bengs and his wife (an interesting German/Argentinian couple that all the locals think are Swiss?) it turns out not only own these houses but have lovingly re-built them beam by beam. Karl is an architect with a passion for Japanese vernacular architecture to match that of David Tait for the UK’s finest cottages (see previous). http://www.k-bengs.com He has built up a business here, restoring some of the remaining examples of traditional Japanese houses, at the same time modernizing the interiors with a euro-focus and making them more ‘comfortable’ for contemporary living.
Apparently in addition to the mini-collection he’s already built on the hillside here, he currently has 4 others flat packed in storage ready to regenerate as a client requires. Some are remade as homes but others have been transformed into successful city-centre stores.
He and his wife generously braved the downpour to move from office-house to home-house & show us round the amazing interior – this building is one of the few left here with a thatched roof, that can survive the 5ft of winter snow. The ‘inside’ of the thatch is actually more beautiful than the exterior.
Never ones to shy away from a utopian vision (!) we hope to pay a return visit and interview him about his vision for the development of the region
Tuesday 18 July '06 (from Seven Samurai)
Saturday the Nina/Karen/Anetos meeting/pick up all goes horribly wrong, there is a major time confusion (my fault) so while I am driving to Tokyo Karen and Nina are struggling to find their way to Matsudai - which they achieve, finally following a black person who the assume to be part of the Triennale on account of the ‘differentness’ - meeting Kumagai, one of the Triennale managers, the same Kumagai who has failed to attend 3 consecutive meetings that he scheduled. Kumagai then calls me to tell me what had happened but refuses to run Karen and Nina the 10mins up to Toge. He also won’t call a taxi as he is too busy and wont delegate to anyone else to do it, he acknowledged that K&N look tiered but suggested they should wait at the centre till I returned from Tokyo at 8pm in 6 hours time. I will find this ‘help’ difficult to forgive.
As it is Karen calls me and I explain how to get a taxi, Kumagai had told them it would be too expensive as Toge was 40 minutes drive. Jamie and I race back from Tokyo foregoing the worlds’ best sushi resturant. Karen and Nina had made it back to the house, all is well bar the slight problem of 2 more people to squeeze into our 4 rudimentary rooms.
As we progress the pressure to make things that the village like is immense and Barnaby’s hyper real portraits provide a 6th form sensibility that will deliver - and it does, he is soon acclaimed as a genius by the locals. Ben also is affected producing a highly polished stall, finely finished, sanded and everything.
On Sunday we are all due to work on the footpaths project, it rains like a horse pissing on a pansy but still we gather and head of to clear many thousands of pounds worth of Acaias, Camellias and rarities beyond my humble gardening knowledge from the footpaths of the region. This very wet ordeal is followed by a mass village bar-b-que where it s all great fun and lots of interesting stuff comes out. We arrange to go and meet Karl Bengs a Dutch/Swiss/German (no one is sure which) architect. He has been living in the area for 10 years and buys old traditional buildings, which he converts into contemporary interpretations of a Japanese/European vernacular architectural fusion.
We have an evening meeting with Kumagai in the squalid office to go over the performance event. He suggests that we have been tardy producing the detailed event schedule (it has been waiting on him for a week). I am pretty much white with anger and make the meeting as uncomfortable as possible. This does seem to energize Kumagai but he looks so ill and tired that I don't really have the heart to go for him. I really feel very sorry for him and his predicament however self-inflicted it maybe. Of course he makes sympathy hard by still trying to chisel money out of every possible orifice, including suggesting that they will sell the booze being supplied to them by the Australian Embassy. The party they are trying to make us pay for is to thank the artists and volunteers who have slaved to make all this possible and from whom Art Front will be then have worked to near death. I am kind of imagining a popular riot and public hanging of the art front staff with me trying to calm the winds of fury. It really seems like an abuse of people, both locals, artists and anyone else that comes within range of the Art Front black hole/negative space. Perhaps what is most unpleasant is the hierarchy whereby some artists get support and funding, luxury hotels and chauffer driven cars, mostly artists that Art Front mistakenly thinks are important, like Richard Deacon (who? You know, 80’s guy, the one that was slightly more credible than Tony Cragg (he comes on a progress through Toge with his retinue, nodding and waving and comparing things to 80’s world)). Art Front really are the rudest people on earth and there seems to be no honor in word or action. Maybe this is just an art thing, there is little honor or honesty in art, the art world or in many cases artists, maybe that is surprising, it seems the opposite of what you would expect - much like Japan. The western perception being that Japanese people are honorable and keep to their word, but then a popular perception of art it that it is about truth. As you might be able to tell I am getting increasingly pissed of with the way we are being treated. Not by the village, but by just about everyone else. Maybe I am just dissapointed again.
Tuesday 18 July '06 (from Seven Samurai)
Art Front are expecting us to manage and present the opening party/art event, which is fine but there seems to be no budget and no one to help. They are insistent that we give them a complete plan of what we are doing only no one turns up for the meeting to hear about it. They also want to bill us for the cost of the event which I laughingly dismiss, however it comes back. This is confusing, how does this work again, we pay to do a n opening for them, it’s like doing a project for Folly gallery in Lancaster ie they have no skills, no money but many demands and you end up paying for thier dinner and they don't say thank you. Additionally we are informed that we are going to be billed for the cost of the car and there is some discussion about billing us for the use of the house. It is becoming clear that the bandits in this piece are Art Front, the programme invades the countryside and ravages man and beast, local and artist, raping and pillaging like the bandits of yore.
Marcus and Barnaby start to discuss giving the Triennale serious art product, what the triennale want, again the scene from the film comes to mind, just walk away, don't challenge. Jamie, Ben and I talk against this capitulation, Marcus and Barnaby want to make a good impression on the art world in attendance at the event, Barbnaby is worried about looking cool and thinks that performing the theme from Ghostbusters (‘there’s something weird in your neighbourhood, who you gonna call’) is not going to do it.
Jamie and I spend the day in an office in Matsudai putting up website and blog. It’s a communal office for the volunteers and artists working on the Triennale. It is an abject lesson in what happens to a space if no one gives a fuck. Remarkably few people come in during the day, in fact only 3 - each of them making what sound to be diabolical projects. I am getting into this, each successive project is worse than its predecessor, so in the order they arrived:
1. A bright orange string laid on the ground round the whole Tsumari area. Each day the artist will drive out to where she has got to and continue laying the string, the project will take 3 months of time well spent.
2. A 5 metre high metal window frame with curtains. I think this idea has been done so many times there could be a great coffee table book of all the versions. Old Grizedale has 3, Forest of Dean a couple, there’s at least one at Hebden Bridge - although this one is a picture frame, but I think maybe the book could have a part 2 for the picture frame variation, and a sub section for the view point bastard child – the portholes, Claude glasses, binoculars, giant car mirrors and other related - look through big version stuff.
3. Placing Merino wool on a rice drying frame to raise awareness of the amount of Australian wool imported into Japan (Australian artist). Local people and volunteers have been working on this for months presumably because they are passionate about getting this criminally hidden history to public attention.
I am also starting to feel a bit guilty about dropping the artists into this heap of shit, but I really did nt know it would be this bad (I did know it would be bad though). Now I am starting to get scared and I am thinking about running for it.
Tuesday 18 July '06 (from Seven Samurai)
The villagers have a day out, they all go of in a bus together to a hot spring, the village is silent all day. On their return no one comes round to see us and we’ve got used to seeing people. I sense something is up. Junko later tells us that we must get up at 6am with the village, they think we are lazy because we don't. (I had said that instead of an 8am breakfast we should have a 9am one, mainly because everyone was working with the villagers after 6pm and then working all evening). We are all a bit hurt but communally agree to do it. So next day we are all up at 6am the village is as quiet as a graveyard. I decide to go shopping in Tokamachi before our 9.30am meeting with Kumagai about the opening performance the Triennale want us to do. In Tokamachi the shops are closed, nothing opens till 9am and most shops open at 10am. This is a blow, I hang around to get the shopping and then head back asap. Kumagai doesn't show, it’s weird but I am getting used to it.
In the evening things got better, Kujo-san came over and we talked about making the bread oven, in the evening we had an Italian meal for a change, although the kitchen was not happy, the gas burners only have hot and hotter setting and there is of course no oven, anyway it all came out pretty ok even with Kraft grated parmesan in a tub, not seen since the 80’s in the UK. The Japanese for some reason love Italian food, and now the oven is underway there is a que forming for pizza. The problem with Toge climate is that nothing ever dries and it rains a lot. Everyone is having problems with their backs from being crouched over tiny tables. Jamie has a special throne for his 16 hour days on the website. Today the Japanese site goes up!
Topics:
- add things[1]
- amphibians[1]
- architecture[2]
- Arnofini[1]
- arnold circus[1]
- being different[1]
- bog lawson park garden water walling craft[1]
- building[1]
- building site[1]
- cats[1]
- celebrity[1]
- censorship[1]
- China[3]
- complaint[1]
- construction[1]
- Creamfields[1]
- Culture Cumbria[1]
- diary[1]
- disco[1]
- drystone walling[2]
- Egremont[1]
- exploited[1]
- Far West[1]
- farmer[1]
- film festivals[1]
- food kitchen garden[1]
- fungi[1]
- furness beekeepers[1]
- furniture[1]
- geodesians[1]
- geodesic dome[1]
- golf[1]
- ground source heat pump[1]
- GSK[2]
- Guest Room[1]
- guestroom[1]
- handling[1]
- Happy Stacking 7[1]
- hay[1]
- Honesty Box[1]
- honesty shop[1]
- Honesty Stall[2]
- Internationaler Dorfladen[1]
- jobs[1]
- July bombers[1]
- Kitchen Garden[1]
- Kurt Schwitters[1]
- landscape design[1]
- Langdale[1]
- Lawson Park Collection[1]
- library[1]
- Littoral[1]
- Liverpool[1]
- London[1]
- Malcolm Wilson Rally[1]
- meadow[1]
- Merz Barn[1]
- mice[1]
- migratory[1]
- moan[1]
- money[1]
- Mycology[1]
- myvillages[1]
- name[1]
- Narnia[1]
- NGS[1]
- Nina Pope[1]
- Old Masters[1]
- open garden bog[1]
- outside broadcast[1]
- overkill[1]
- Peter Hodgson[2]
- Peter Inman[1]
- pigs animals field livestock[1]
- Pope and Guthrie[1]
- proposal[6]
- public works[2]
- rawnsley[1]
- reactor[1]
- records[1]
- residencies[1]
- Royal Academy[2]
- rural[1]
- rural girl[1]
- Ruskin[2]
- school[1]
- self-importance[1]
- Seven Samurai[1]
- shack[1]
- skep[1]
- Slade School of Art[1]
- soil[1]
- something[1]
- song for a circus[1]
- soul[1]
- soul music[1]
- strawberries[1]
- Stuart Bastik[1]
- Sufelje[1]
- SXSW Film Festival[1]
- ted taylforth[1]
- Texas[1]
- the Supernaturals[1]
- Toadball[1]
- toads[1]
- two guys[1]
- UCL[1]
- USA[1]
- vegetables[1]
- Village Kiosk[2]
- village shop[8]
- weather[1]
- wildflower meadow[1]
- wildflower meadow gardening toads[1]
- work[1]
Months:
Our blogs:Grizedale Arts Blog, Seven Samurai, Farmyard Radio, Creative Egremont, myvillages.org, Lawson Park Blog