SILL
Paradise AIR + City of Matsudo
The word "Paradise" is borrowed from the name of the establishment occupying the exhibition and production building. Located above the pachinko parlor (a pinball gambling establishment) called Rakuen, the word describes paradise in Japanese which fills a sense of optimism in an enclosed illusion.
Sill is a local research project based on the sense of enclosure and the optimism of a window that operates as a sense of enchantment of the external world and the isolation of its enclosure.
The sense of ambiguous engagement and disengagement within Japanese culture, the project examines the transitory ambivalence between interior and exterior.
Artists - Minwoo Lee & Kristof Trakal
Curator - Arata Hasegawa
Critic & Review - Takumi Fukuo
"A ray of sunlight, pouring in from the window at a certain time, throws into relief the shape of the window frame onto the opposite wall. Objects consist of elements seen from the windows of paradise (Rakuen): the beauty and the isolation." - Fukuo
ENGAGEMENT &
DISENGAGEMENT
TOUR
The orientations and outputs of artistic practices of Minwoo Lee and Kristof Trakal are poles apart, yet both responded to the interrogation of what it is to wait. Minwoo's paradoxical idea of moving images that do not move, with Kristof's performative disengagement proposes a candid reflexivity about creating, moving, and acting through a sense of resistance.
Artifacts collected during a series of tours around the city of Matsudo—fragmented collections of crevasses, spaces of opening, sites of abandonment, and places of melancholy, amalgamated into a folded book—were shared for the audience to brush on top of the image with bleach to erase one element after another.
From August to November, a series of public programs—artist talks, workshops, open studios, round-table forums, and exhibitions—were facilitated to engage with the public on the creative development in Matsudo.