Features

LI Jia's Exchange Experience in Japan

2024-09-03

Beijing-based curator and writer LI Jia (ACC 2021) focuses on socially engaged art. Her three-month ACC Fellowship in Japan provided her with an opportunity to think about the diversity of art exhibitions and projects, in major cities like Tokyo and in smaller remote towns.

She says: “I was deeply moved by their [the Japanese peoples’] profound sensitiveness and closeness to nature, their enthusiasm for preserving a traditional, harmonious way of life with less waste, and their belongingness and loyalty to the local community.” Through her Fellowship, Jia was left with the impression that meaningful cultural exchange can start “from tiny moments that later lead to deep empathy and emotional connection” between individuals from different cultures and backgrounds.

Through her research, Jia saw connections in environmental activism and civic engagement, community-based participatory practices, and youth self-organization.

For her, one of the most rewarding parts of her was meeting new people Jia met a community of Chinese diasporic artists, ranging in age from 25 to 45 years old, who are establishing themselves in the north and the west of Tokyo.

She was introduced to independent art spaces like ARTix3 – established by three young Chinese women living in the city, to showcase the practices of Japanese and Chinese emerging artists. Jia was invited to give an informal talk on Chinese video artists and their engagement with memory politics over the past few decades. With another artist collective, Jia helped organize a screening of short films by Chinese artist Yu Guo, followed by a dialogue at a community café.

Li Jia in dialogue with artist Kenji Chiga and ACC Alumna Yang Yuanyuan, at ARTiX3, Tokyo

Thanks to an introduction by ACC Japan's Yuko Suzuki, Jia also interviewed many arts professionals like Mr. Masato Nakamura, a pioneering figure in Tokyo’s contemporary art scene. Nakamura was central to curating and organizing legendary guerrilla art projects like the iconic "Ginburart" (Ginza art stroll*) in the 1990s, collaborating with artists such as Takashi Murakami and Makoto Aida.
* “Ginza art stroll” was coined by Adrian Favell

Nakamura shared his experiences, the challenges, and his motivation for advocating for diverse art projects in local communities in the 1990s, during a time of socioeconomic uncertainty; and Jia found parallels to art project development in China during the same period. Jia hopes to implement what she has learnt from Nakamura in her own practice, "Nakamura enlightened me on the flexibility of cultivating art on a community basis and instilling and transforming it into people's everyday lives."

Another highlight of Jia's Fellowship was a visit to Beppu, a remote spa town in Ōita Prefecture on the island of Kyushu, with a population of 120,000. Despite its modest size, Jia found that Beppu hosts a vibrant mix of artist residencies, art festivals, and artistic communities.

Kashima 2023 Artist-in-Residence Symposium, held at the Beppu Citizen Center

Inspired by the “Beppu Project,” a nonprofit organization that promotes the arts as an avenue to learning different perspectives, Jia hopes to work with a group of artists from different backgrounds to initiate a small-scale, intra-Asian artist residency in the northwestern mountain areas of China. Since the 1950s, these regions have seen devastating depletion of natural resources. She believes a project like this can serve as a starting point for meaningful cross-cultural dialogue and understanding around environmental issues, bringing critical insights on ecological issues.