Third Thursday Lecture: Ikemura Leiko: Beyond Wonderland (2022年1月20日)
This month’s lecture was held online due to continual COVID restrictions and was a roundtable discussion with Tania Moore, David Elliot and Adrian Favell joining Dr. Simon Kaner, who emceed the event, along with artist Ikemura Leiko.
After some technical issues, Simon explained that in March SISJAC will be publishing a book based on the exhibition held last year at the Sainsbury Centre on the UEA campus in Norwich. The focal point being the Usagi Kannon II statue which was installed in the sculpture park in late November 2022. Dr. Kaner anticipates the statue will be there and encouraged anyone visiting the campus to come and meet what he described as the ‘rabbit-shaped goddess of mercy’.
Dr. Kaner then gave a quick overview of the exhibition itself, along with showing two short films which served to ground the fifty minute discussion, including Ikemura-san’s thoughts on the statue but also how she is both human but also animal. The first gave an overview the exhibition, including cameos from the students on the MA Interdisciplinary Japanese Studies course who happened to be visiting the exhibition at the same time as it was being filmed.
“Our world is already wonderland.” Ikemura-san explained during the video.
The second film was set at Ikemura’s studio in Berlin and showed several pieces as well as the her workshop, including glimpses of many of the pieces including in the exhibition. After more technically issues, including the loss of several of the panelists, Dr. Kaner began the interview by thanking Ikemura-san for allowing them to visit her atelier-studio and explained how the exhibition at the Sainsbury Centre was born during the pandemic.
Dr. Kaner asked how important the concept of ‘home’ was to the artist. She explained there was a strong connection between herself and the world, as well as how home was a place of comfort but also included several cities from Spain, as well as Köln and Berlin in Germany to Norfolk and her ‘new home’ in her birth town of Tsu, in Mie prefecture.
She also commented on the power of light used in the exhibition, as well as in several of the glass pieces which were at home when she was unable to attend to worshop in Murano, Italy. Ikemura-san also explained how she liked working in glass because it was translucent and transparent but also had its own ‘volume of light’, as well as a distinctive palette of colours.
Due to a wonky internet connection, Dr. Kaner switched to a pre-recorded interview filmed prior to the TTL as they were unsure of whether Ikemura-san would be available. This interview was a little more informal and she was genuinely happy to see the exhibition, as well as how much of it had to be done over Zoom due to the pandemic.
She discussed the importance of balance and colour but also the importance of visiting exhibitions in person. Stressing that doing things digitally wasn’t impossible but it added another dimension to how exhibition and the conversation involved between artist and audience were important.
The final question of this recorded interview focused on the future, such as works, exhibitions and other events. However much of this has been affected by the pandemic, though Ikemura-san still seemed excited by the prospect and events she has been involved with.
Switching back to a live feed, Dr. Kaner moved on and invited the panel to join them, beginning with Tania Moore, the chief curator at the Sainsbury Centre and co-curator of the Ikemura exhibition. She explained how the exhibition was born and how they usually relate to items in the permanent collection, which includes a number of Japanese artefacts. She then briefly showed some examples of the exhibition, noting how Ikemura has a wide range of pieces from the nineties to 2020, as well as being of various different media from photographs and paintings to small sculptures and glass items. Finally, she briefly announced plans to acquire several items of Ikemura’s work, including White Figure with Blue Miko (1996) and PV-scape I, II and III (2011).
David Elliott, a British cultural historian, curator, writer and teacher who has been the director of modern art museums in Oxford, Stockholm, Tokyo and Istanbul, then took over and explained why he felt a kinship with both Ikemura and her work. He used his time to explain her career beginning in the early eighties to the present day, as only an art historian can. This did sound a little more like an obituary of a passed artisan and was a little surreal with the artist herself in the adjacent Zoom window, quietly listening, nodding and smiling to herself, as her artistic career was laid out for the uninitiated and curious listeners.
Finally, Adrian Favell, who has been Professorial Academic Associate at SISJAC since 2015, took over the discussion to bring it to the present day. He was apologetic about not being able to be in Norwich to see the exhibition as he was currently in Germany and explained how hespecialised in later generational art, from the nineties onward. He described Ikemura-san as an ‘archetypical artist specialising in migration’. His other area of focus was on how one compares one artist with others, citing that writers tend to be generational where as artists are unique and hate to be compared. He also focused on her passion for ceramics, post the 2011 Tohoku earthquake.
At the conclusion, Dr. Kaner returned and, briefly, opened up the panel discussion by asking Ikemura-san herself to speak. She thanked the panelists for their thoughts and expressed her gratitude. She then discussed the migration in her work and how she is Japanese and Swiss but also a chameleon, suggesting she is all the places she has lived and visited, including Germany. However the people she has also encountered are also important, including meeting her partner. The event ended, as Third Thursday Lectures do, with a short Q and A session, with some fascinating questions and interesting answers.
You can view the entire event below:
