Sato Kengo Exhibition Group Cavities and Enclosures

Mar. 25 [Fri.] ― Apr. 3 [Sun.] 2022 11:00-19:00
Gallery open every day of exhibition.

To view web exhibition movie, please click the play icon on the center of movie below.

Gallery view · concept introduction movie (Japanese)

Movie production: Web Magazine CollaːJ SHIONO Tetsuya

*Click image to view in original size

The young architect Sato Kengo held his first solo exhibition "Enclosure and Meddling" at Toki-no-Wasuremono in 2018. This time, his second exhibition will display works including his new pinhole camera objects, photographs, and drawings. Since moving his base from Tokyo to Otama Village, Fukushima, in 2020, he has continued to be active, primarily in architectural design, while going back and forth between Tohoku and the capital region. He also posts a monthly essay, "Regarding the Land ~ Thinking About Architecture from India", to Toki-no-Wasuremono's blog. We will be publishing an exhibition catalogue with texts by Sato Kengo and Tsuzuki Kyoichi.

The artist will be at the gallery between 13:00 to 19:00 from Friday 25th March to Sunday 3rd April.
On Saturdays and Sundays 26th, 27th, 2nd and 3rd, artist will be at the gallery between 11:00 to 19:00.

●Sato Kengo Exhibition Group Cavities and Enclosures Exhibition Catalogue

Publish date: March 25, 2022
Publisher: Watanuki Ltd./Toki-no-Wasuremon
17.1×25.6cm (Deformed B5), 24 pages
Text: Sato Kengo, Tsuzuki Kyoichi
Design: Okamoto Issen Design Studio
Images: 32
Price incl. tax: JPY 880- + JPY 250- (delivery within Japan)

[Statement - Cavities and Enclosures]
When Kukai first established his teachings, the esoteric Buddhism of his sect was called junmitsu (“pure esotericism”) and the existing esoteric Buddhism of the masses was labeled zomitsu (“miscellaneous esotericism”). This zomitsu, a faith led by self-ordained priests, was an uncodified and fragmented assembly of multiple beliefs born contemporaneously and combined with local religions.
The zomitsu ichiboku (single block) Buddhist carvings had a towering roughness expressing anger towards the corrupt Buddhist world and society as a whole at that time. They were infused to the brim with a kind of massive bulk, a singular sense of shape that I doubt could be expressed through any medium besides wood sculpture.
Maybe it was a style of modeling representing only the blip of time between antiquity and the middle ages, but in it was a ferocity necessarily borne by heretics against the orthodoxy, by the edge against the center. As an extreme limit of modeling, as a necessity borne from the fringes, zomitsu Buddhas require a reevaluation.
These kinds of thoughts about work from 1000 years ago - closer to daydreams - are what I ponder in the remote countryside of Tohoku. Otama Village, Fukushima Prefecture. Technically in Tohoku, the land barely borders Kanto. Mount Adatara shows glimpses of her face from any corner of the village. In the winter, cold air comes down in gales from the mountains, and snowfall piles up into snow drifts that blow up and around. That’s the kind of place where I currently live. Despite the difference in region, by placing myself in local society, I feel like I can hone in on the outsider’s sense of shape imbued in the zomitsu buddhas. I felt this even more strongly in the travel restricted conditions of these recent times.
In Tohoku I can obtain a chestnut log with relative ease. You could call it a benefit of cold regions. From the chestnut log, I carve out a cavity. I carve a cavity because it also serves the simultaneous purpose of being a miniature architectural model. Then, I stick the cavity with iron and have it stand on its own. There are times when I simply lay them on a ground. A cavity, as a tool to be enclosed by, say, furniture, or some other thing, has an assigned position in a person’s daily life. It’s possible that a person could find a place to be in the spaces between multiple cavities.
The connection between iron and chestnut is a point of great concern. It’s a matter of trial and error regarding the contact between materials, and a construction of combination at the molecular level. These cavities are an experiment involving certain types of apertures. An entrance and an exit. Or even only an entrance. Based on its structure, a cavity has a certain orientation. When several oriented cavities flock together like the zomitsu buddhas gathered in ancient temples, they design a faint continuous scene like weaving smoke.

December 2021 Sato Kengo

■SATO Kengo (b.1989)
Architect (first class registered architect)
Born in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture in 1989.
Graduated Tokyo University School of Engineering, Department of Architecture in 2011.
Finished Doctorate course from the Department of Architecture and Architectural Engineering at Waseda University at the Osamu Ishiyama Laboratory in 2013.
After completing time as an assistant researcher in the same course, entered Studio GAYA in 2014.
Employed as Assistant Professor at Vadodara Design Academy in India from 2015.
Enrolled in Tokyo University Graduate School Department of Engineering the same year.
Employed at the indigo dye company Kanransha in Otama Village, Fukushima Prefecture from 2016.
Supervised the “In-Field Studio” design workshop in India the same year.
Awarded the Kajima Award at Space Design Review 2017 for “Project in Santiniketan” in 2017.
Joined the Cooperation Volunteers of the Fukushima Prefecture Otama Village Area in 2018.
Continues to be involved in production as he orbits his bases on India, Tokyo, and Fukushima.
URL: http://korogaro.net/

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