03/12/06 - Artist Talk: Tsuyoshi Ozawa

There are 3 groups of work participating in APT 5:
1. Photography
2. Futon Mountain (Kids APT)
3. Little Milk Tin – Natsubi Gallery

Natsubi Gallery (2006)

• Uses 28 milk tin
• He uses milk tin as he likes milk tin
• Each milk tin/box contain interesting work of artist from other country
- Each milk tin is a small gallery for each participating artists in APT 5 ( see the video below)



• He started this project 10 years ago
- Around 150 artists had ‘exhibited’ in these gallery, in various location
- About 15 years ago, he was unknown to others
- He was looking for places to exhibit his works (no place to exhibit as he was unknown) and that marks the beginning of Natsubi Gallery
• He started it as a criticism of conventional galleries
• He held exhibition once a month (change the ‘exhibiting artist’ every month) on Ginza Street, Japan, Tokyo, together with Takashi Murakami and Masato Nakamura
- He started to gain the attention of the media and also the police (haha..)
- He therefore stopped the ‘Travelling Exhibition’
• He exhibited Natsubi Gallery along street of Venice Biennale to gain more attention
- He succeeded
- After going to Venice, he was also invited to France, England etc. and ‘exhibited’ artists from other town and country in his Natsubi Gallery
• Boxes are usually return to participating artists after exhibition
- Some are sold to museum or continues in other exhibition

Vegetable Weapon series (2002)



Seafood hotpot/Beijing (from 'Vegetable weapon' series) 2002
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery


• Ozawa always wanted to make something anti-war and anti-weapon (using soft humour)
• Beginning stage happens when 9/11 happened. It provides more incentives for Ozawa to produce it

Process:
1. Find the right person for the photo
2. Discuss what they want to eat (local food)
3. Meet up with model and purchase the ingredient for the dish
4. Assemble the ingredients in the shape of a weapon
5. At the end of the project, disassemble the ‘weapon’ and cook the local dish and invite people to eat it together

****This final step of disassemble the ingredient and eating it has a special meaning****

• Ozawa believes that through food, we can understand more about each other (between country and people)
- Helps to reduce misunderstanding i.e. fights and therefore, we would have a better world
• In this project, he has done about 25 photos and he would want to continue

Qn: How does he decide the location of the photos?

• Before choosing the models, he would research about the town and also discuss with the model
• Usually, its an everyday location for the model

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Particpating work in Kid's APT:

Everyone Likes Someone As You Like Someone(also known as Futon Mountain)



this is one of the most popular interactive art work of the Kid's APT.it is a mountain-sized pile of futon cushions installed in the gallery for the kids to climb on or sit on to draw pictures of their favourite people and swap their drawings for one made by a child in Japan.



Top view of the artwork, where we can see the 'face' in the 'crater' of the Futon mountain.



this is the table where the kids can create their artworks.