We will hold an exhibition featuring four artists participating in the Artist in Residence Program 2025 “CAMP”: MAETANI Kai, TANJI Rie, Adi SUNDORO, Atittayaporn SAENPO, and Samantha CLARK, who was recommended by the Pier Arts Centre.
This year, because of the renovation work going on at the ACAC facilities, we will give Result Presentation at the Aomori Citizens’ Art Gallery inside the JR Aomori Station East Exit Building adjacent to the Aomori Station, instead of ACAC’s exhibition Hall.
Thinking about the five participants getting together specifically in Aomori, who are creatively inspired by a different situation compared to the past years, and minding what they can do now while trying to respond to the new environment, we sincerely hope that you will witness the result of their residency production.

The flyer is available here.

MAETANI Kai
In recent years, Maetani developed his self-portraits which he has been working on since the early stages of his activities, and through photographing him as a subject, he explores ways to get involved with others and the environment. The peninsulas where he visited in other residency programs were places where he could become aware of the scenery and the position of himself standing in that place, says Maetani. In the residency program in Aomori, he will conduct fieldwork to follow the changing scenery along the coastline of the Tsugaru Peninsula. He will also give a performance consisting of the shooting sites while involving other people.

TANJI Rie
Tanji has been working on projects in which private spaces such as a closet and a kitchen of those living in other areas are temporarily reproduced, using clothes or daily goods collected at her residency site. Through repeatedly implementing this project while changing places, she explores how fragments from ordinary life can get connected beyond places. In Aomori, she conducts research mainly in Misawa City, and using things that she collects in this area, she will reconstruct daily life scenery of people living in a totally different district. In the contemporary society where a natural disaster or a war could completely transform one’s ordinary life, the question of whether “daily life” can be exchangeable beyond place is explored through this project.

Adi SUNDORO
In Indonesia, “gorengan” is a snack sold by street vendors and it is wrapped in printed matter that carried personal information. Coming from Jakarta, Indonesia, Sundoro got interested in a borderline between privacy and public realm and developed his project on that topic. During the residency program this time, he will focus on awareness of privacy and how trash is treated in Japan and Indonesia and will look for issues latent in the society and culture through his printmaking while getting involved with local people.

Atittayaporn SAENPO
In Isan district in Thailand where Saenpo grew up, insects used to be part of people’s lives and culture. Due to a rapid economic growth, however, the ecosystem changed, and native species of grasshopper disappeared. In such a situation, she has been working on an art project stemming from the question, “In today’s world, where do grasshoppers go to hang themselves?” In this residency program, she focuses on Tsugaru’s traditional ritual of “mushi-okuri” in which insects are expelled from farmland in a natural way, and memories of immigrant workers from Thailand in Japan who carry on insect-eating culture. Based on these interests, she explores practices that connect Tohoku District in Japan and the Isan District.

Samantha CLARK
She plans to research the significance of water in contemporary and historical Japanese culture, to become acquainted with the waters that move around and through the local environment of Aomori, and record this through drawing, writing and moving image. She will also explore meditative and collaborative drawing that makes use of simple, repetitive mark-making. According to Clark, this is an embodied way to understand how small individual actions can, when repeated and shared, become significant and powerful, like drops of water eroding a mountain or a small stream cutting a deep gorge. She will create an inclusive opportunity for people to engage in such drawing practice together and experience the achievement of a patient collaboration.