In November 2015 German-Chinese Society, Partnershipsociety Cologne-Peking and Tenri Japanese-German Institute in close cooperation celebrated a three week Chinese-Japanese-German festival for mutual cultural understanding, all under the uniting topic of „Bamboo“. Central to the festival was an art exhibition of two Chinese-Japanese-(German) artist groups that focused on possibilities and ways of intercultural communication and cooperation by using „Bamboo“ as inspiration and motif to also involve the visitors of the festival.
A further exhibition focused on the use of bamboo as an artistic motif in paintings and literature as well as a raw material for everyday or ritual objects.
In the air
Six artists and art students from China, Germany and Japan developed a project that refers to bamboo as an early medium for writing and drawing. Works were exchanged two times among the artists in six parallel running series according to the principle of a relay race. Each artist extracts elements from the preceding work, interprets and reflects it and integrates it into his or her own work of art. A process of approaching and setting boundaries is shown, a dialogue in works of art, about art, but also about communication and the search for mutual understanding apart from language. The title here points towards the indirect relationship between the artists during their processes of creation that virtually seem to float „in the air“ above the works.
Artists:
Chihiro Nishio (Kanagawa/Tokyo), Lei Xi (Jiangsu/Cologne), Reiko Yamaguchi (Okayama/Braunschweig), Simiao Yu (Tianjin/Braunschweig), Rui Zhang (Anhui/Braunschweig), Miriam Laage (Berlin/Braunschweig)
Installationview showing works of two series
Klingon Tea Ceremony
Megumi Fukuda and Echo Ho are interdisciplinary artists from Japan (Hiroshima) and China (Peking) both working and living in Germany. Their encounter led to an intensive personal, cultural and artistic exchange and the shared project: The Klingon Tea Ceremony. Both artists intended not to present their own ancient cultures, but to use their cultural heritage as a gesture for the artistic ritual and, this way, dissolving traditional customs, habits and convictions instead. The ceremonial character invites the visitor to value the alienation between the worlds and the time leaps over thousands of years as a personal encounter.
An ephemeral bamboo garden was created for Tenri Japanese-German Institute using sound, light and different objects. Branched paths lead the visitor into a sphere of alternating light and shadow, while thoughts seem to fade to the sound of wind and dripping water. Light gets low as the sun sets, but it flashes up again in the reflections of the faces in the tea cups.
Space and sound installation by Echo Ho and Megumi Fukuda
Performance Klingon Tea Ceremony