nca | nichido contemporary art

Green Routes by nca | nichido contemporary art

nca | nichido contemporary art is pleased to present the group show “Green Routes” at CADAN Yurakucho, featuring the work of Ting Tong Chang, Chih-Hung Liu, Yi-Chun Lo and Kazuya Sakamoto

■Exhibition info
Venue: CADAN Yurakucho (Yurakucho Building 1F,1-10-1 Yurakucho,Chiyoda-ku,Tokyo)
Date: 2021/12.21 (Tue.) – 2022/1.16 (Sun.)
*Winter holidays: 2021/12.27 (Mon.) – 2022/1.3 (Mon.)
Opening hours: Tuesday – Friday 11AM-7PM
Saturday, Sunday and National Holidays 11AM – 5PM
Closed: Mondays and Days following National Holidays
Exhibiting artists: Ting Tong Chang / Chih-Hung Liu / Yi-Chun Lo / Kazuya Sakamoto

■About the exhibition
The bond we share with plants is much deeper than we are aware of, deeply rooted in our everyday life. Their presence has been a constant feature against the historical backdrop of humankind and the wealth they produce has at times been the trigger of conflicts. The recent, extreme weather events and air pollution-related issues have forced the entire world to take a closer look at the environmental impact of human societies.
The exhibition features the work of four artists who have turned their interest for natural elements from Taiwan’s landscapes into the object of their research. By investigating people’s journey in relation to plants (the green around us) each from a different perspective, they shed light on issues we as human beings need to overcome, while keeping a constant eye on the past.

Ting-Ting Chang (Born in Taiwan, 1982. Currently working between Taipei and London)
MFA in Fine Art, Goldsmiths, University of London.
At the chore of Ting-Tong Chang’s work lies a thorough analysis of the issues affecting societies today, such as the ecological and social impact our consumeristic way of life has been contributing to, or yet the illogical and unjust nature of the system they have created. Through a versatile approach that ranges from drawing to performance, sculpture and video art, Chang uses his work to embrace science, technology and history while deconstructing the world around him. On this occasion the artist presents his latest installation/video work, created during his two-week residency in one of Taiwan’s mountainous areas in collaboration with an Amis tribal hunter, where the artist documents the realization of a dwelling place using locally sourced materials. While experiencing firsthand how to turn his artistic skills into survival skills, Chang reevaluates the trajectory of human history by adopting an object-oriented perspective.

Yi-Chun Lo (Born in Taiwan, 1985. Currently working in Taipei)
MFA in Fine Art, Taiwan National University of the Arts
Yi-Chun Lo investigates the relation between people and nature and their history through fieldwork that allows her to get in contact with different local communities. Her wide-ranging practice stretches from drawings to large-scale installations and is especially characterized by the use of natural media, such as banana peels and tobacco leaves. In this exhibition the artist presents a new series of work that focuses on sugarcane. Many daily necessities, such as white sugar and cane sugar, are produced from sugarcane but the list goes on and includes nowadays a type of aviation fuel obtained through the production of a sugarcane-based ethanol. Sugar factories have undergone big changes adjusting their production so as to meet the needs of the time, and to reflect societies’ lifestyle trends and benefits. Through the creation of munitions and common items, such as training goods normally used to keep fit and healthy, as bagasse-made sculptures Lo is warning us of the structure of human societies where the pursuit of self-interest has become the main driving force.

Kazuya Sakamoto (Born in Tottori, Japan, 1985. Currently working in Aichi)
MFA, Contemporary Art, Nagoya University of Art, Aichi
Growing waterweeds at home inside aquariums has been a passion of Kazuya Sakamoto (1985 -) and it is through the observation of these plants that the artist has learnt of the similarities such ecosystems share with the fabric of society. Sakamoto has been engaged ever since in an effort to represent the inner side of things choosing plants as the object of his work.
The variety of species minutely represented, multiplying and breeding on the canvas, seems to be a metaphor of the constant changes required of life to thrive. In 2017 Sakamoto was selected to join a one-year residency program promoted by the Agency of Cultural Affairs in Taiwan, destination chosen by the artist himself as it is from this country that his waterweeds originally come from. Sakamoto’s recent work has adopted an even more versatile expressive language that explores the relation between people and plants, as well as its intricate history which differs from country to country.

Chih-Hung Liu (Born in, 1985. Currently working in Taipei)
MFA in Fine Art, Taipei National University of the Arts
Chih-Hung Liu’s work seems to capture bits from the artist’s everyday life and surrounding environment drawing inspiration from the landscapes and events he encounters during his journeys. Liu’s work goes behind the sole representation of a natural landscape or the observation of the world; it frames, on different levels, time and emotions trying to make them visible. Liu’s versatile nature finds its voice in the use of different media such as painting, installation, video, writing, and sculpture. The paintings on view, completed during the half-lockdown imposed as one of the containment measures against the pandemic, depict the banana trees the artist encountered while riding his motorbike at dawn. We seem to discover the same sense of liberation Liu must have felt seeking freedom on his motorbike while escaping from reality, perceiving the invisible, emotional toll, an uncomfortable feeling of fear and suffocation, the pandemic has brought about.