Born in 1960 in Kagoshima, Japan

Lives and works in Fukuoka

Hiroshi Fuji

Kaeru, 2008

My project starts with organizing a bazaar where children bring their unwanted toys to exchange. Local people involve themselves in making a variety of artworks from the materials brought to the bazaar. Those works are then interwoven with elements at key places in Santa Fe. It is this system and process that I present as my work for the Biennial.

I define arts as “the technology that changes what is deemed socially valueless to something special.” I prompt people to create a new image from diverse human relationships in their own community, utilizing local sources  including materials, people, sites, and systems  and then making the image appear in various communal spaces. This idea refers back to fresco paintings from the past  images painted in pigments taken from mud, which served to give hope to people about the afterlife.

I am not interested in the image that I make by myself. I rather want to create a system and space that generates an image amongst a diverse range of people.

Unexpected images emerge from relationships between different types of presences  when they first meet and collide with each other. The meaning and value of the image continuously changes as it meets someone new. I call this “the process of making.” I find great significance in the various relationships that constitute this process. I find values in that process, which successively generates further images, like a chain reaction. One is emotionally affected, spending time with those who share a wish to create something wonderful  this experience propels further actions.

Kaeru demonstrates the process of making through a system of re-using domestic waste. In Japanese, Kaeru means to transform, return, change and exchange. The word connotes positive attitude rather than passivity. It also means frog  the extinction of which is feared today.

An action that touches people generates further actions. Ultimately it creates a new set of values for the forthcoming age. A community adjusts itself to changing values. Thus, I believe it is significant to kaeru (change) values to what are truly enjoyed and appreciated by people.

Fuji-san’s Kaekko toy exchange took place at the National Dance Institute of New Mexico. The artist used a selection of the vestigial toys to hold two small workshops for children at Fine Art for Children and Teens (FACT). The children made sculptures from the unwanted toys. These sculptures are on display at the Museum of International Folk Art. Fuji-san also led teams of local artists and volunteers in a water-bottle sculpture project. The sculptures are on display on the lamp posts at the Santa Fe Opera’s Parking Lot.

Hiroshi Fuji studied the art of dyeing while pursuing his undergraduate degree in Kyoto. However, finding a gap between his expectations of, versus the predominant trends in, contemporary art at that time, he shifted his interests toward performing arts and experimented with the activities that go beyond the existing framework and system of arts. This quite ironically brought him back into dialogue with the core elements of contemporary art.

Consistently engaged with the social, Fuji’s projects focus on the realities of life. For him, art is about exploring a possible system that causes an unexpected event rather than creating an object, e.g. an artwork. Art is neither an image nor an object. Rather it is a system employed to bring about creative activity that occurs within a community. He coined the term “art as operation system (OS)” to summarize this idea.

The utilization of objects and materials considered useless or valueless by society is a hallmark of Fuji’s artistic practice. The two years that he spent in Papua New Guinea as a member of Overseas Cooperation Agency from 1986 to 1988 provided him a memorable encounter with a “skinny dog.” At first, he undervalued skinny stray dogs as a life with no use; yet upon seeing these forlorn creatures actively hunting wild pigs, he quickly revised his thinking. Inspired by the vitality that the dogs demonstrated, Fuji made a series of “skinny dog” sculptures from the wood of a dismantled house. The skinny dog has since become an icon of his work.

With Domestic Waste Zero Emission (1997-2003) and Vinyl Plastic Connection (1999) he further explored the notion of uselessness, experimenting with the re-use of trash in art. For these projects, Fuji, along with his wife and children, collected plastic materials from their domestic waste, classifying them by colors and shapes, and turned them into an art installation.

The experience of working with the Austrian artist group WochenKlausur in 1999 showed him how art can function as an agent of social change within local communities, which reinforced his notion of art as OS. This experience, along with his earlier projects, informed Fuji’s conceptual approach to Kaekko (2000). Based on the model of a bazaar, Kaekko is a simulation of commerce for children to exchange their no-longer-wanted toys. To date, Kaekko has operated in more than 3,000 communities both in and outside of Japan. Although the project was first initiated by Fuji, Kaekko has taken on a life of its own. Communities throughout Japan and beyond, now organize their own versions of his project. Kaekko is an emblematic work of Hiroshi Fuji. It has evolved into various works including Dream Bird (2006), Happy Flower (2006), and Reverse Club (2006) – all made from the remained toys from the bazaar workshops. They were prominently exhibited at the 12th Asian Art Biennale Bangladesh (2006)  which awarded him the Grand Prix  as well as the touring show in China, Beautiful New World (2007).

Tsukasa Mori and Yuu Takehisa