Ayumi Tadashi | How Can Art Retell the Memory of the Land? — From "Coal Mine Future Project II" and "Iron and Art"
This article examines two exhibitions that use art to retell the memories embedded in the local history of Fukuoka's coal and iron industries.Summary
The author explores how art can retell the memory of the land by reviewing two exhibitions in Fukuoka Prefecture: the Tagawa City Museum of Art's "Coal Mine Future Project II: Things that are Transferred, Change, and Rise Up" and the Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art's "Iron and Art: The Trajectory of Beauty Woven by the Iron Capital." The Tagawa exhibition focused on the coal industry, examining its light and shadow through the records of artists like Taeko Tomiyama and Sanbe Sakamoto, and responses from contemporary artists centered on the act of "transferring" (utsusu). The Kitakyushu exhibition explored how iron and railways drove modernization, the transformation of labor, and the cultural activities surrounding the steel industry, utilizing paintings and archival materials. Both exhibitions shared a structure of excavating modern art archives and featuring contemporary responses, demonstrating how art can recontextualize local memory, prompting the author to reconsider the concept of "Fukuoka's local character."
(Source：artscape)