ICHI IKEDA / Tatsuro Kodama
EARTH ART,which confronts the global environmental crisis head-on, will lead the way in creating an art culture that will revitalize the human society of the future!Ichi Ikeda uses water as his main medium. Water is a choice that strongly connects Ikeda to a global movement involved with water rights, and broader environmental issues. Ichi Ikeda expresses these concerns with a true spirit of innovation and exploration, and he does not abandon the public in so doing. His projects involve communities of volunteers, and build forums for discussing social and environmental issues and concerns. His community activism, public performances, and interactive installations are all part of 'Ikeda Water'. Ikeda Water includes projects like Water Piano, Water Mirror, Earth-Up-Mark, United Waters, the Big Hands Conference, the Manosegawa River Art Project, the Water Market Project, 80,000 Litre Water Box and Yakushima Island. Sustainability can guide us to understanding the resilient and integrative capacities inherent to nature. Nature’s structures are procreative interactive living designs - a response to the many forces of variability and diversity that come togetherin nature. All these living elements, ourselves included, are mutually connected. Kodama’s photographs are witness to the moment in the actions, interventions of Ikeda’s art. With a modest and sharp consciousness, Kodama captures with a sense of the moment, of the event of the art action. An example is Seven Gatepoles - the original conception and the re-creation of first growth forest stumps - these tree stumps are the guardians of water. The 5 Greenscapes extand more ambitious linkages to environment, give a hand to place, and our place in all this nature. (John K. Grande)Ichi IkedaFor more than 25 years, Ichi Ikeda has developed artworks strongly connected to global environmental issues, especially those related to water. In 1991, he was the first Japanese artist to be invited to the main stage of the 21st Sao Paulo Biennial. 1995, he was selected as one of the '12 Artists of the World' for the UN 50th Anniversary Art Calendar. In 1996, he organized 'Asia Edge 1996/Tokyo' to promote a new network image of the Asia Pacific Art Net concept, In 2008, he was invited to a seminar on the environment at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, where he proposed 'Water’s-Eye: Water’s Eye View' as a new perspective on the social and natural systems, which was well received by people from various fields. Born in Osaka in 1943. Graduated from Kyoto University, Faculty of Engineering with a Master’s degree in Polymer Chemistry.Tatsuro KodamaActive as an amateur photographer since the 1980s, Tatsuro Kodama won first place in the 1984 Japan Camera Annual Awards and third place in the 1985 Photo Contest Magazine Annual Awards. In 1990, he led a local 'movement against the construction of a golf course. In 1997, he met the master of Earth Art, Ichi Ikeda.And his two-year documentary photography project was highly acclaimed. Since then, he has participated in 28 art projects in 26 cities in Japan and abroad, including Asian countries, India, Canada, and Italy. In addition to his activities as an photographer, he continues to teach photography classes, serve as a contestjudge, and engage in a variety of other photographic activities. Currently, he is the representative of Tatsuro Design World. He is an instructor in the art department of Kagoshima Shoyo High School. Member of the Minami-Kyushu City Council for the Protection of Cultural Properties. Born in 1952, he is 71 years old and lives with his wife Reiko in Chiran-cho, Minami-Kyushu City, Kagoshima Prefecture. His grandson is Hayato Kodama, a super junior high school trumpeter in the classical music world.
