Snap from the field workshop led by Keijiro Suzuki. At Akiyoshidai Plateau in Mine City of Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan. On the 24th of February in 2019, 3-4pm. As part of Ilana Halperin: The Rock Cycle (Yamaguchi) project

WAGON is delighted to announce that, together with the Yamaguchi-based artist Keijiro Suzuki, we have launched a new relational community project Attempts in Nameless Days × WAGON. The first task is: ”Take a picture of the full moon and share it”. Please feel free to participate by sharing your full moon photo here.

OVERVIEW

Attempts in Nameless Days × WAGON is a small community project led by Yamaguchi-based artist Keijiro Suzuki and Oban-based curator Naoko Mabon (WAGON). The project draws inspiration from Attempts in Nameless Days… (2014-)*, a relational community project led by Keijiro, involving attempting a series of simple self-imposed or suggested tasks in cooperation. Through actively working together and making small achievements cooperatively, participants will develop mutual experience and be hopefully connected and bounded as a community over time. In this project, which is developed through a perspective and approach of art practitioners, we hope to make a modest in size yet different, flexible, sustainable, relaxed and fun learning activity, in which any one from any location can participate and enjoy.

*Keijiro Suzuki, Attempts in Nameless Days… (2014-)
This community project is based on three theories: Valley Section by Patrick Geddes, the Law of Success by Napoleon Hill, and Relational Aesthetics by Nicholas Baurriaud. With Valley Section, Keijiro explored various tools, occupations, and associated stories and items from different altitudes in Yamaguchi from seashore to mountain area. In the Law of Success, Keijiro wrote plans and worked with collaborators through trial and error, to examine the power of imagination, writing and pragmatic approach to our world. And finally, in Relational Aesthetics, he created a relational situation with audience/participants as an artistic practice, rather than art objects. attemptsinnamelessdays-blog.tumblr.com

ORGANISERS

Naoko Mabon is a Fukuoka-born Oban-based freelance curator. As an immigrant whose body always finds itself “in-between (mis)translations”, Naoko is interested in the volatile, fluid and fictitious nature of one’s identity and how we can weave relationships with what we see as “disparate others” beyond common ground. Naoko often works with people across backgrounds, professions and cultures. Through a collaborative approach based on research, experience and conversation, she aims to make diverse forms of projects responding to the issues specific to the focused contexts, localities or communities. In- and outside of her professional practice, Naoko cares about and tries to remain something small, fragile and slow. Through this attitude, she tries to question traditionally dominant perspectives or narratives. www.wagonart.org

Keijiro Suzuki is a Yamaguchi-based interdisciplinary artist, curator, cultural organizer and art/design producer. Educated in Nagoya and Houston, U.S. Keijiro has exhibited internationally. Previously participated in environmental building workshops as an intern including Earthship Biotecture (Taos, New Mexico). Keijiro examines social/community issues by analyzing local/global context. With an interest in visual rhetoric, intercultural perspectives and community revival, he focuses on the revitalization of (un)documented inherited skills, knowledge and wisdom, and unification of contemporary practices with it. Deeply interested in natural phenomena, constellations, and associated effects in flux transgressing concepts of time and space.​ www.keijirosuzuki.com