Group Exhibition: SKILLS ACADEMY: SUMMER CLASS PRESENTATION OF “EARTH-LIFE LEARNING”

Materials:
Inkjet print, chestnut tree, cedar tree, glass

Description:
We take for granted that soil is always nearby. But you would struggle to find any immediately if you look for it. Here was not originally any soil in this space, away from the ground. Even if you eventually came across small amounts of soil at the base of a tree on the street, you would still not be permitted to gather even a handful of soil for yourself. The soil, and the land where it is found, always belongs to someone.
The many plants that fill this exhibition space and the soil in which they are planted are all part of the artwork of Takeshi Yasura, an artist who engages in farming and beekeeping while continuing his artistic practice as an intermediary. Yasura brought them from lshinomaki, Chiba, and other locations where he is currently active. We often assume that plants can survive so long as they have light and water. But plants cannot not adapt to the special environment of this indoor exhibition space if we neglect them after severing them from their environment, or neglect the soil in which they live. Yasura tended to the plants for more than a month before the start of the exhibition while preparing their habitat. As the breeze helps to loosen the soil and the worms and microorganisms inside do their part, these efforts are finally bearing fruit, and remind us that an environment prepared for non-human entities turns out to be a comfortable space for us as well. The containers holding the plants can also be nice places for us to sit and rest. What scenery appears before us when we look at this exhibit as a “habitat” from the same perspective as the plants, from the perspective of the soil?
For one of the spring workshops on the theme of “playfulness,” participants visited Yasura’s field in Chiba, where they dug holes in which their bodies could be “planted,” before eventually handing over the holes as habitat for potatoes. During the second half of this exhibition, an on-site production by Takeshi Yasura will give us an opportunity to consider a daily practice of how our own habitat made from soil can be returned to soil or handed down.

Photo:Akihiro Itagaki (Nacasa & Partners)
Courtesy of Fondation d’entreprise Hermès