The work consists of three pavilions (average size 300 x 400 x 250 cm) made of scaffolding pipes, boards and cloth. The “chikahomes” are furnished with garbage that the artist collected from inhabitants living in the vicinity of each pavilion. The garbage has been cleaned and decorated with drawings, prints and text. The chikahomes function both as hangouts as well as backdrops of several musical performances.
Local communication is the main theme of her work, according to Japanese artist Chikako Watanabe. Using simple tools, Chikako Watanabe has created three small and intimate pavilions, or, as she calls them ‘temporary resting-places’. In the pavilions different things happen: at set times there are musical performances or performance art as well as small exhibitions of works that Watanabe has created from waste material she collected in the neighbourhood. During the months preceding the start of Open Source Amsterdam, Watanabe regularly rode her blue carrier cycle to various waste dumps in the Bijlmer. People who donated their leftovers, received a ‘ thank you’: a specially designed pack of tissues as a souvenir of the project. It’s what she calls ‘ tissue exchange’, referring to the Japanese term for collecting old paper. The recycled material gives her access to the people that live in the neighbourhood of her artworks, to the small stories and pursuits of their daily life. In her pavilions she reconstructs those stories from her personal perspective. And quite regularly from a different one, for instance from the singers and musicians she invites to perform in her chikahomes.
Chikako Watanabe
1969, Aichi, JP. Lives and works in Amsterdam, NL
Watanabe came to Amsterdam in 1996. Her work had acquired a certain social flavour before then, in Japan, where she and six other artists temporarily opened their apartments to the public. Her characteristic sense of humour was already apparent, judging by the ceramic theme park she made for her pet mouse. Both these elements, social involvement and light-heartedness, still characterise her work today. In the Netherlands, Watanabe has increasingly based her work on social and cultural research, customs and traditions. Stadsboerderij Sugoroku (‘Sugoroku City Farm’) is a good example. Using the traditional Japanese boardgame of Sugoroku, Watanabe involved the public in the situation around Almere’s city farm, from the negotiations with the local council and the complaints about the cow-path to the exuberant harvest festival.
Chikako Watanabe
1969, Aichi, JP. Lives and works in Amsterdam, NL
Watanabe came to Amsterdam in 1996. Her work had acquired a certain social flavour before then, in Japan, where she and six other artists temporarily opened their apartments to the public. Her characteristic sense of humour was already apparent, judging by the ceramic theme park she made for her pet mouse. Both these elements, social involvement and light-heartedness, still characterise her work today. In the Netherlands, Watanabe has increasingly based her work on social and cultural research, customs and traditions. Stadsboerderij Sugoroku (‘Sugoroku City Farm’) is a good example. Using the traditional Japanese boardgame of Sugoroku, Watanabe involved the public in the situation around Almere’s city farm, from the negotiations with the local council and the complaints about the cow-path to the exuberant harvest festival.