Mako Ishizuka
Residenceartist
Place: Storaateljén, BKN
Date: 1 – 30 September 2020
“I attempt to intervene in the psychological and physical distances that emerge where the global meets the everyday, using my own experiences and imagination as springboard. Having lived as ‘others’ in various societies in the world, i acquired resilience, parallax and the license for leaps, and encountered people who are generous to exchange. I appreciate them to observe society and play with rules, norms, and logics, and to ruminate and share the findings and questions that surface from the shades. My view is communicated in a personal manner, taking various forms, such as visual installations, social projects, acts, essays, and combination of them, inviting people to look afresh at their values and relation to the surrounding world.
I studied Interdisciplinary Studies (culture/philosophy/sociology) at Kobe College in Japan, and free art at Gerrit Rietveld Academy in the Netherlands and Malmö Art Academy in Sweden. For my projects, I have received opportunities such as IASPIS in Sweden, Cité des Arts/Institut Français in France, Capacete in Brazil, Bag Factory in South Africa, Cittadellart in Italy, and Production Prize from Pistoletto Foundation. My practice has been presented in various places such as Fittja Pavilion at 14th Architecture Biennale in Venice, “Frictions in the Globalisation” at EHESS (National Institute for Higher Studies in Social Sciences) in Paris, and “Connecting Scapes” at Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo.
At BKN I would like to work on the production of workshop/installation “Graphic Movements”, a social attempt to exercise humanity under COVID environment, reflecting the differences of the applied rules and people’s reactions in the countries where I am related (Sweden as my resident place, Japan as my homeland, and possibly UK where I got thought-provoking experiences including discriminations during the Lock-down this spring). I also would like to work on the essays around the act of resisting in our current society that is divided and opposed, and in our current world that is full of absurdity. “
