2021 Exhibition [Autumn / Winter]Hirosaki Encounters

Terroir of Apples / Hirosaki: Magnetic Field for Myriad Encounters

Our second exhibition, following the Spring-Summer Exhibition Apple Cycle / Cosmic Seed, focuses on Hirosaki as terroir (soil, climate and environmental factors that give fruits and other crops, in this case apples, a distinctive flavor), and features works by artists with ties to Hirosaki and works that emerged through encounters with the region.

Here “encounters” references the meteorological phenomena of major weather changes that occur at the boundaries and interchanges of different air masses, and at the frontlines of movement. Based on this key concept, the exhibition explores the energies that arise from diverse encounters, confrontations, and interactions, such as engagement with the local region, intersections with unfamiliar worlds, and discovery of one’s own roots through family history. It encourages viewers to rethink cultural climate and the power of place in terms of relationships between the natural and the human-made, reality and imagination, modern and contemporary, East and West, past and present.

Continuing from the Spring/Summer Exhibition, the British artist Cerith Wyn Evans exhibits large-scale neon sculptures created based on his encounters with apples in Hirosaki. Meanwhile, a new group of five artists of widely varying ages and backgrounds, who have different points of contact with Hirosaki, present diverse works including paintings, sculptures, drawings, videos, and installations exhibited in accordance with the museum’s spaces. And the Hirosaki Exchange program, each session of which takes a multifaceted approach to re-examination of regionality and creativity, will shed light on the activities of Tsugarugaku, a magazine with a track record of observing the Tsugaru region through a wide range of special features, and will also highlight the modern architecture and cityscape of Hirosaki.

MIKI Akiko
Curator of the exhibition