Naoko Mabon has contributed a text to the new collection Felt Events, which explores the multifaceted conceptual practice of the artist Ilana Halperin. Edited by Dr Catriona McAra.

Naoko Mabon contributed a text on Tomoko Konoike’s Storytelling Table Runner project to Japan Quality magazine (web version). The text is based on Naoko’s experience as a translator/mediator in the June-2021 event featuring the project as part of Neighbouring programme of Glasgow International. 

The same text has been also featured in The Drouth, the host platform of the Neighbouring programme. 

Warmest thanks go to: Akane Nakamori at Suisei-Art; Japan Quality magazine; Tomoko Konoike; Mayako Murai; Yuko Shoji; Johnny Rodger at The Drouth; Glasgow International; and all the event organisers and participants namely: Mónica Laiseca; Carol Dunn; Jessica Holdengarde; Megan Lucille Boettcher; and Stefanie Cheong.

To read the piece in the Japan Quality, please click here.
To read the piece in The Drouth, please click here. 

Naoko Mabon together with Ilana Halperin will present what has been brought out from our collaborations to date between Scotland and Japan in the “Scotland and Japan Conference”. This two-day international conference on 10-11 February has been organised by the Scottish Society for Art History (SSAH) in partnership with The National Museum of Japanese History among all other colleagues and experts.

For more on the conference and to book a ticket, please click here.

Naoko Mabon has contributed to Not From Here, Sluice magazine’s Autumn 2021 issue. To respond to the theme of the issue “immigrants”, Naoko wrote a text around the 2018 project in São Paulo entitled Kyojitsu-Hiniku: Between the Skin and the Flesh of Japan, which explored the identity of Nipo-Brazilian, developed through a process and consequence of the physical movement of people (featured work by: Juliana Kase; Takanori Suga; Detanico Lain; Satoshi Hashimoto; Hikaru Fujii).

Honoured to be invited to be part of “Towards the Water – Ecotone” Folio, conceived by Deirdre MacKenna and produced by Cultural Documents for the Dunoon Burgh Hall COP26 Season, with funding from Creative Scotland.

Naoko Mabon has been invited to conduct this year’s CLIMAVORE: On Tidal Zones Residency. Click here for more details.

✳︎“How can we collaboratively activate the intertidal zones as a forum for critically thinking about and taking actions towards the climate crisis?”

✳︎“How can we approach, understand and share the complex ecology, stories, heritage and challenges around the intertidal zones in an inclusive way?”

As part of the new On Tidal Zones Residency launched by Skye-based ATLAS Arts and CLIMAVORE of Cooking Sections, Oban-based curator Naoko Mabon will explore these questions through a practice-led action research in her own locale during the summer 2021.

Naoko Mabon was commissioned by The Drouth to write a piece on the ongoing project Ilana Halperin: The Rock Cycle (Yamaguchi) in relation to their Neighbouring project (15-18 June 2021 as part of Glasgow International).

My warmest thanks go to: The Drouth, Prof. Johnny Rodger, Ilana Halperin and all our Japanese and Scottish collaborators. To read Naoko’s piece please click here.

国際交流基金サンパウロ日本文化センターの副所長・山雄起さんによる「Kyojitsu-Hiniku − 日本の皮膚と肉体のはざま」展のインタビューが掲載されました。
Entrevista extensiva de Yuki Yama, da Japan Foundation Sao Paulo, sobre o projeto ‘Kyojitsu-Hiniku: Sob A Pele – Sobre A Carne Do Japão’, no ano passado, para os 110 anos de Imigração Japonesa no Brasil.
Extensive interview by Yuki Yama of Japan Foundation Sao Paulo on ‘Kyojitsu-Hiniku: Between the Skin and the Flesh of Japan’ project last year for The 110 Years of Japanese Immigration in Brazil.

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Naoko Mabon (as WAGON) has been invited to a panel discussion ‘Tipping Point’ in Assembly Aberdeen – where will be speaking alongside D2 and Kirsty Russell (as Underpinning) on ‘strategies to further build endurance and stability within Aberdeen’s growing grassroots community’.

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The Curator’s Workshop is a monthly discussion group, run by Glasgow-based curator Francesca Zappia, open to curators, artists, writers, researchers, students and other arts professionals as well as amateurs interested in a critical reflection around curatorial practices (exhibitions, displays, discursive and performative forms, public engagement…) and related theory. The Curator’s Workshop aims to be a platform open to different perspectives of research and will invite a new professional each month to share material and reflections in order to foster new discussions.

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Peacock Associates is Scotland’s first fully-funded Curatorial Fellowship for visual arts.

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Naoko Mabon was commissioned by LUX Scotland to write a piece reflecting on On Sharing, Separations, an evening event between artist Tako Taal and curator Seán Elder. The event was held last November at W OR M of Peacock Visual Arts in Aberdeen, as part of LUX Scotland’s pilot programme of events in Aberdeen, supported by Aberdeen City Council’s Creative Funding Programme.

Thank you LUX Scotland, Tako and Sean for this wonderful opportunity.
To read Naoko’s piece please click here.

Naoko Mabon contributed a writing piece on a Japanese sculptor Bushiro Mohri (1923-2004) for the website of JAPAN Quality magazine.

Warmest thanks go to Akane Nakamori, JAPAN Quality, Asuka Mohri, Masaki Yanagihara, Sachiko Yanagihara, Ryouhei Yanagihara, Coelacanth – Bushiro Mohri Memorial Museum, Concept Space, Satoshi Mouri, and Leslie Mabon.

To read the piece, please click here.

Thanks to the generous support and advice from the Sculptor Yutaka Toyota and Osamu Matsuo of Bunkyo, we just delivered work by Takanori Suga A Blank Sign “Dripping Project in São Paulo” to the Sports Center Kokushikan Daigaku in São Roque of São Paulo. Thank you so much to all the people who gave us warm support and advice towards the production, storage – and future re-installing. We very much look forward to seeing this piece in the near future.

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Mabon will share findings from her recent residency in São Paulo in Guests @ Gray’s, lecture series with invited professionals in art, design and culture at Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen on 13th October. She will then invite Coordinators of Überbau_house – Jorge Sepúlveda T. (Independent Curator and Critic, from Chile) and Guillermina Bustos (Artist and Independent Researcher, from Argentina) – to talk about their activities as autonomous initiative in Latin American contemporary art field.

Guests @ Gray’s
‘Residency Report: one-month contemporary art research residency at Überbau_house in São Paulo, Brazil’
Friday 13th October 2017, 1-2pm
Gray’s School of Art, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen
Speaker: Naoko Mabon (guest speakers over Skype: Jorge Sepúlveda T. and Guillermina Bustos of Überbau_house)

Please visit Mabon’s daily photo report during her residency here: one-month-in-sao-paulo.tumblr.com

Naoko Mabon will conduct a one-month research residency at Überbau_house in São Paulo from 31st August to 28th September 2017.

Follow Mabon’s daily photo report here: one-month-in-sao-paulo.tumblr.com

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We are happy to announce that copies of Ilana Halperin’s ‘Geologic Intimacy (Yu no Hana)’ are now stocked at The Fruitmarket Gallery Bookshop in Edinburgh and Aye-Aye Books in CCA, Glasgow.

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A writing piece Leaves Without Routes: 根も葉も無い by Naoko Mabon is included in the latest issue of Cha, the first Hong Kong-based English online literary journal founded in 2007 as part of a programme at Hong Kong Baptist University.

Our warmest thanks go to: everyone at Cha, Tammy Ho, Prof Kyoko Yoshida, Yasunori Kawamatsu, Yuki Okumura, Kaori Yamashita, Nobuyuki Yamamoto, I-Chern Lai, Yu Hua Chen, Keting Kurt Chen, Wei-hsiu Wu, Taipei Botanical Garden, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute, Japan–Taiwan Exchange Association, Prof Kenji Horigome, MISAKO & ROSEN, Dr Leslie Mabon, among others.

Click here to view the text by Naoko.

For more on the exhibition Leaves Without Routes: 根も葉も無い, please click here.