Morehow ヒビモヨウ

The Metamorphosis of Spaces: Takashima City

nospam@example.com (Tomas Svab) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:54:00 +0900

２００８年６月４日ー６月３０日

Gallery Kai, Osaka, Japan

"Bleak" from "Metamorphosis of Spaces."

All the photographs in this series were taken in or just around Takashima City in Shiga Prefecture. What sparked my interest originally were two ideas. One, that this was the city where my in-laws live and I was just beginning to discover it as a Westerner, completely new to the life here in Japan. I thought that if I went out and photographed it I'd learn more. Two, the city was recently formed from five small towns and one village; perhaps signalling an end to the quiet life here.

＜日本語訳＞
このシリーズにある作品の全ては滋賀県高島市周辺で撮影されたものである。
そもそもこのシリーズを始めたきっかけには二つの考えがあった。ひとつには義理の家族が住む場所で、欧米人として全く新しい日本の生活を発見し始めていた時であり、写真に撮ることによって、自分自身色々なことを学ぶことができると思ったからである。二つめとしてこの市が近年６町村が合併したということ。おそらくここにある平穏な生活シーンに変化が見られるかもしれないと感じたことである。
Continue reading "The Metamorphosis of Spaces: Takashima City"

Diagrams at PRINZ, Kyoto

nospam@example.com (Tomas Svab) — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 22:32:01 +0900

The Geopolitical Eveningwear series at PRINZ from January to February, 2008. The series has thirteen photographs in it right now but it will be added to as time goes on. Most of these images haven't been exhibited before. You can see all the images in detail in this posting's tags.

Geopolitical Eveningwear series.

Riot at Fraser Regional Correctional Centre

nospam@example.com (Tomas Svab) — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 15:26:56 +0900

Fraser Regional Correctional Centre in Maple Ridge, British Columbia, Canada

Today the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) reported that there was an "uprising" of about 30 prisoners at the Fraser Regional Correctional Centre involving about 30 prisoners. According to the CBC article the prison is designed for about 420 prisoners, but there have been complaints about overcrowding. They didn't mention how many prisoners were in the jail at the time of the uprising. A spokesman for the prison claims the disturbance was stopped without any serious injuries.

I wanted to photograph the exterior of the building in 2005 and I was barely allowed to speak to anyone. I had to call out in an empty room until finally I heard a voice come from behind a thick mirrored glass partition telling me there is no way I could ever take photos of the building's exterior even from the parking

Pulled Over from Brothers series; we had a good time being pulled over by this RCMP officer turned actor. With a huge studio camera and a flash in the car, we had to ask if we could take his photo, so he is actually acting... in this shot.

lot.

Not wanting to take any chances with the RCMP, I decided it was safer for me just to take a photo of the sign as part of my fences series. Although another time, I did have a great photo opportunity with the police; one of an RCMP officer with an interest in art and television, that made it into the exhibited series "Brothers." This time I didn't want to push my luck, since I've seen first hand what is only recently being documented in the media about accidental injuries inflicted onto unarmed people by the RCMP.

Playroom. at MOMAK

nospam@example.com (Tomas Svab) — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 22:27:45 +0900

On November 1st I photographed the installation of a work called Playroom. by ICHIHARA Hiroko and YANAI Shin-ichi. The photographed is published on the MOMAK (The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto) website in the news section.

The room the work was installed in completely changed once the elementary school students and high school students arrived. The piece was transformed from a static collection of objects into something spontaneous and carefree. These are not always the kind of reactions we want to have in an art gallery — or so it used to be, a group of people quietly contemplating a Rodin sculpture without more than a whisper. Children are not so distant from art. They enjoy jumping right into it. Playroom. is the kind of piece where you can see this transition because it was built for children and teens to interact with.

Making Books by Hand

nospam@example.com (Tomas Svab) — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 23:24:46 +0900

The Geopolitical Eveningwear book.

Inside the book.

The two books showing the stitching in the coptic style binding.

Inside the Brothers book.

1st Art Catalogue

nospam@example.com (Tomas Svab) — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 22:59:31 +0900

Finally the 1st Art catalogue has arrived from BMO. It shows the artwork of the winning artists between 2003 and 2007 from all across Canada. I'm happy to see that there are more winning photographs from Emily Carr Institute. The original project I submitted that was chosen as the national winner in 2005 is described in this entry. You can see more detailed images here as well.

Vancouver Art Gallery

nospam@example.com (Tomas Svab) — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 21:30:05 +0900

I worked for the Vancouver Art Gallery Photo-imaging department from 2003 to 2007. I started out making scans of the artwork documented on film. Later I began to photograph artwork and installations digitally. I also photographed some events for the gallery when the event was big enough to be photographed. Here is a selection of the kind of work I did for the Vancouver Art Gallery and other freelance work in the art community.

Portfolio

nospam@example.com (Tomas Svab) — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 20:43:17 +0900

Tomas Svab's professional and art photography portfolio section is a collection of only portfolio work.

Go to the Portfolio Section

Kyoto Jidai Matsuri (Festival of the Ages)

nospam@example.com (Saori Svabova) — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 22:16:58 +0900

Sanjo Bridge during the Kyoto Jidai Matsuri as the parade passes to its destination at Heian Shrine.

More photos from the festival

１０月２２日、京都三大祭りの一つである「時代祭」を見に行った。明治から平安時代までの１１００年にのぼる時代の流れを２０００人の行列を通して再現していく。行列では時代の流れを感じさせてくれる様々な衣装や道具、また参列した人々の豊かな表情など、実際に会場でしか味わうことのできない雰囲気を楽しむことができた。

We went to see the Jidai Matsuri (Festival of the Eras) on Oct 22. This festival is the one of three big festivals in Kyoto and held annually. There is a total of around 2000 participants in the parade. Each group shows the style each era between Heian period about 1000 years ago, through to the Meiji era that ended just a hundred years ago.

Wikipedia 時代祭

Wikipedia: Festival of the Ages

Destination: Kyoto City

nospam@example.com (Tomas Svab) — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 22:17:39 +0900

Our Balcony, Facing South, Kyoto City.

Shelter, Uzumasa, Kyoto City.

Uzumasa is near Eiga Mura or Movie Town in Kyoto city. The neighbourhood can't be compared to Vancouver at all. While Vancouver was built in clear steps our neighbourhood in Kyoto is layer on layer of construction. The houses are packed together but not in even rows. The streets become suddenly narrow and house-fronts face different directions. But in Kyoto the tiny Jizo shrines keep their sacred spaces like bubbles from the past as trains, scooters and houses surround them. If Vancouver is well known for its modernist architecture, being predominantly built in the 1950s and 60s, Kyoto is more like a well packed suitcase holding the contents of over a thousand years in a modern city.

The End of the Road

nospam@example.com (Tomas Svab) — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 22:11:16 +0900

At the landslide construction area.

I decided to take a look at the progress of the landslide repair just past Kutsuki village (Takashima City) that seems to be under construction since at least last July. Kutsuki is in the mountains between Lake Biwa and Kyoto City. In fact, three cities and two prefectures meet up in one part at the edge of Kutsuki: Takashima City, Kyoto City and Otsu City. I think the landslide is just across the boundary in Otsu City. There are few ways to get to Kyoto from Kutsuki but there are also other roads that meander, growing mossier and mossier until they suddenly end as tiny one lane roads marked with crumbled cliff-faces and warning signs. It was one of these roads that I drove on on a rainy autumn day.

One of the roads coming from Kutsuki and ending somewhere north of Kyoto city.

It was also on this day that I decided to change the name of the series I was working on from "The Disappearing Views of Takashima-City" to something else. I began to see the geography marking how the towns, villages and countryside has been arbitrarily clumped into cities to fight the constant population drain in rural areas. Over one bridge is Kyoto city, in Kyoto prefecture and my side I was in Otsu city, Shiga prefecture. This was all just a little ways from Takashima city which was seven separate towns and hamlets just a few years ago. These places I've been visiting since last year are not as separate as the taxation and utility departments define them. I realized that I don't want to define the places I'm photographing by the same set of rules as some city-hall wants to.

The mossy road that ended suddenly.

The other part of the name "Disappearing Views of Takashima-City" I don't like is that these views aren't going to disappear as much as change. But that's nothing new or spectacular. What is really happening is that the younger generation is moving to the city to find more profitable work and live in greater convenience creating a vacuum in the rural areas. So in the end I need to start photographing the journey between the quiet towns and villages between Lake Biwa and Kyoto city. Now I just need to come up with a new name. "City Self, Country Self" is already taken by Rodney Graham.

Pawn

nospam@example.com (Tomas Svab) — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 14:19:27 +0900

Pawn

This is a scale model built for "Pawn." The background has been destroyed but the car model will be used for upcoming installations. Stay tuned.

Disappearing Views of Takashima City 「消えゆく光景、高島市」シリーズ

nospam@example.com (Tomas Svab) — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 14:01:00 +0900

Disappearing Views… go to image gallery
イメージギャラリーはこちらから

The main image for this series is 350 cm wide but you will be able to zoom into the faces of the harvesters in the photograph with a special viewer the works right from your browser.

This way you can enjoy the images almost like you are standing right in the gallery.

The largest image in this series is a work in progress reaching 14 meters across but due to the difficulty of working with hundreds of files it will take me probably two years to fully complete the image.

このシリーズのメイン写真のサイズは幅３５０cm。しかしブラウザーから
直接動かせるビューワで写真中の収穫者たちの顔表情までズームして見ることができる。
このブラウザーでの見方はまるでギャラリーの中であなたが鑑賞しているかのような楽しませてくれる。
このシリーズの中での一番大きな写真は幅１４mにのぼり、現在製作中。何百ものファイルを使っての作業のため、
完全に完成させるまでにはあと２年を要する予定である。

Vancouver Panoramas バンクーバーのパノラマ」

nospam@example.com (Tomas Svab) — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 08:00:00 +0900

Vancouver Panoramas… go to image gallery
イメージギャラリーはこちらから

After my move to Japan I realized I still have material I haven't fully processed from Vancouver. Here are some large panoramic photographs that are complete. This time they are shown much larger than I've been able to show them before.

日本へ移ってから、実はまだバンクーバーで進行中であった素材があることに気づいた。
ここではすでに完成済みのいくつかのパノラマ写真を紹介する。今回は以前よりもさらに大きなスケールで
ウェブ上にて見られるようになった。

Fences & Continuing with Fingerprinting

nospam@example.com (Tomas Svab) — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 06:00:00 +0900

Fences… go to image gallery
イメージギャラリーはこちらから

I thought I'd show some more from this series. When I was working on this series I was thinking a lot about borders and boundaries because we're always surrounded by them. My Dad recently reminded me about how borders are changing with his example about the Schengen Area. The Czech government is notifying people that soon it will become part of this border-free zone in Europe. More on the Schengen Area.

When I was a child, I once had to stay behind while my parents went to visit relatives in Germany. This was just in case they thought of escaping from the Czech Republic. The borders were very strict and travelling anywhere meant you needed to have permission to do so. When we moved to Canada we were all so happy that we could just drop by the border and go the the United States. These days the situation is changing in Canada.