{"id":20875,"date":"2025-04-14T08:40:01","date_gmt":"2025-04-13T23:40:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.a-i-t.net\/?post_type=blog&p=20875"},"modified":"2025-04-14T08:39:38","modified_gmt":"2025-04-13T23:39:38","slug":"ait-residency-report-by-luca-frei","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.a-i-t.net\/en\/blog\/p20875\/","title":{"rendered":"AIT Residency report by Luca Frei"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Artist-in-Residence program conducted by AIT began collaborating with IASPIS in 2003, inviting artists based in Sweden to Tokyo. In this blog, we introduce a report on the stay and research activities of Luca Frei, a Malm\u00f6-based artist who was invited in 2024, along with photos documenting his experience.
Text: Luca Frei (Artist)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About Luca Frei<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca Frei is a visual artist based in Malm\u00f6, Sweden. He works across various mediums, including sculpture, installations, exhibition design, and book design. Much of his work is grounded in practical applications and aesthetics. He is also deeply interested in collective processes and learning, often exploring themes of history and daily life. In his recent works, he has focused on textiles, exploring their material and cultural significance through an interdisciplinary approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Meeting with the Nomikawa River<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

During my residency at Artist Initiative Tokyo (September 1 – November 30, 2023), I was based in a quiet neighbourhood between Ontakesan and Yukigaya-\u014dtsuka stations in \u014cta Ward, southeast Tokyo. My daily walks along the Nomigawa River, which originates in residential Setagaya Ward and flows, partly hidden underground, to industrial Tokyo Bay, inspired a photographic documentation project. The urban fabric along the river banks revealed rich textures through architectural transitions and the mise-niwa practice of arranged potted plants that blur private and public spaces.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Luca’s handmade map of the Nomikawa River, which begins in Setagaya, Tokyo, passes through Ota ward where the residence facility is located, and stretches all the way to Tokyo Bay.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n
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Photos of the landscapes around the Nomikawa River taken by Luca.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Understanding Japanese Material Culture<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My understanding of Japanese material culture was enriched through visits to several institutions. The Japan Folk Crafts Museum, its adjacent Yanagi’s Residence, and the exhibition “Fabric and Fragment: Repurposing Global Textiles in Japan” at the Gotoh Museum deepened my appreciation for everyday craftworks and Japan’s distinct culture of valuing old textiles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Left: Former residence of Yanagi S\u014detsu Center: Exhibition scene at the Gotoh Museum Right: Gotoh Museum garden Photos by Luca Frei.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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In Kanazawa, Junko Oki’s work at the National Craft Museum provided new perspectives on textile practice, while the exhibition “Lines \u2014Aligning your consciousness with the flow” at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art offered insights into traditional and contemporary craft dialogue. There, I reconnected with curator Jin Motohashi from my participation in the 2018 bauhaus imaginista exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto. In Takamatsu, I encountered significant examples of material integration: Kenzo Tange’s Kagawa Prefectural Government Office East Building with Genichiro Inokuma’s tiled mural, and the Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum in Mure, where sculpture, architecture, and landscape create a unified spatial presence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From left: Artwork from the exhibition “Lines \u2014 Aligning Consciousness with the Flow” at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
Center: Kenichiro Inokuma\u2019s tile mural
Right: At the Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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Creating New Works and Exhibition in Kyoto<\/strong>
During the residency, I produced new works combining purchased and found fabrics from the neighbourhood. A significant development emerged from preserving the grid-like folds left by fabric sellers as structural elements in the compositions. These incidental creases serve both as aesthetic elements and practical solutions for storage and transport, their measured grid patterns resonating with Japanese concepts of temporal and spatial ordering. These works, alongside photographs documenting the Nomigawa River, were presented in the group exhibition “Lines” at the Contemporary Art Factory and the Myorenji Temple in Kyoto (November 17 – December 1), which provided a unique setting for the work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Luca purchased fabric and scraps of cloth in places like Nishi-Nippori and hand-stitched them at his residence. In the photo on the right, you can clearly see the folds left in the fabric.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Attending the exhibition opening at My\u014dren-ji in Kyoto<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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The residency concluded with an artist talk and performance at AIT, where I unfolded the textile pieces produced during my stay. The works were presented on the floor, creating an intimate setting where the ritualised act of unfolding allowed the audience to observe each piece from different angles and discover details up close. This was the first time I presented the works in this type of performative display, creating a new dimension in how the pieces interact with time, space and the public.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Artist talk & display performance held at the Daikanyama AIT Room<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The residency was made possible through the support of the AIT team: Rika, Naoko, Mafumi, Akiko, and Rie, and Konstn\u00e4rsn\u00e4mnden, The Swedish Arts Grants Committee and IASPIS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A residency report by artist Luca Frei who stayed in Japan for three months via IASPIS and AIT residency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":20895,"template":"","blog_projects":[152],"blog_category":[167,168],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.a-i-t.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog\/20875"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.a-i-t.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.a-i-t.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/blog"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.a-i-t.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"version-history":[{"count":50,"href":"https:\/\/www.a-i-t.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog\/20875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21513,"href":"https:\/\/www.a-i-t.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog\/20875\/revisions\/21513"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.a-i-t.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.a-i-t.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"blog_projects","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.a-i-t.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog_projects?post=20875"},{"taxonomy":"blog_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.a-i-t.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog_category?post=20875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}