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【Yanai Initiative】Record Project “Niou: When We Were Together Inhaling the Same Scent” (November 23)

Record Project “Niou: When We Were Together Inhaling the Same Scent”

Experience something invisible, smell, in one place, and share it in words.

  • Date: Thursday, November 23, 2023
  • Time: 4:00pm – 6:00pm (Doors open 3:30pm)
  • Venue: Ono Auditorium, Waseda University
  • Special Guests: Erika Kobayashi, Maki Ueda
  • Language: Japanese
  • Participant: All ages, Public Welcome. Limited Seating Available.
  • Participation: Free, Please submit a registration form to reserve space at the link below (English link not available): Registration Form
  • Organized by the Yanai Initiative for Globalizing Japanese Humanities

The word “nihohi,” from which smell is derived, was originally a synesthetic word that also described a pinkish glow or aura. Since ancient times, our experience of smells has been spun only by words, but there must have been “something” there that could not be described by words.
Flyer

Guests

Erika Kobayashi

Erika Kobayashi creates works that are inspired by things invisible to the eye: time and history, family and memory, and the traces left in places. She was awarded the 44th Japan Sherlock Holmes Club Encouragement Award in 2022 for her novel His Last Bow published by Kodansha, the 7th Tekken Heterotopia Literary Prize in 2020 for her novel Trinity, Trinity, Trinity, published by Shūeisha, won the the 2022-2023 Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prizes (JUSFC) for the Translation of Japanese Literature for the Trinity, Trinity, Trinity, translated by Brian Bergstrom, published by Astra House. She was nominated for the 27th Mishima Yukio Award and the 151st Akutagawa Award in 2014 for her novel, Madame Curie to chōshoku o (Breakfast with Madame Curie), also published by Shūeisha. Along with her literary work, she has presented installation pieces as an artist both in Japan and internationally that enable viewers to re-experience various scenes from her writings in which the elements of fiction and documentary drift between personal narrative and social reality.
Her other publications include the collection of short stories She Looks into the Mirror, the nonfictional work Shin’ai naru Kitty tachi e (Your Dear Kitty,), inspired by the diaries of Anne Frank and based on the diary of Kobayashi father, the graphic novel Hikari no kodomo 1.2.3 LUMINOUS (Children of Light: Luminous), which traces the history of the atom and radiation.
Her recent solo exhibitions include 1F in the Forest of Wild Birds, Yutaka Kikutake Gallery, Tokyo (2019); and Trinity,Karuizawa New Art Museum, Nagano (2017). Group exhibitions include Hirosaki Encounters, Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art, Aomori(2022), Image Narratives: Literature in Japanese Contemporary Art, The National Art Center, Tokyo (2019).

Maki Ueda

Born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1974. Currently based in Okinawa and Tokyo, Japan.
Olfactory artist Maki Ueda (JP/NL) focuses the spectator’s attention on her fragrant gestures by minimizing the influence of the other senses. Her current research explores olfaction in relation to space and movement resulting in strong, often universal, approaches. She focuses on the pure experience of a smell instead of a more contextual or narrative approach. In addition to her own creative work, she teaches courses on olfactory art at the ArtScience Interfaculty of The Royal Academy of Art and the Royal Conservatoire, The Hague (NL) since 2009.
She has developed a unique combination of chemical and kitchen skills in order to extract the scents of daily life, including foods, ambient aromas, and bodily scents. She creates scents that capture childhood, identity, a mood, or a historical event. The results of her experiments take the form of olfactory installations and workshops. She has inspired and influenced many olfactory artists for making her process and recipes “open source” on her blog, and became one of the most famous olfactory artists.
She received a grant from the Japanese government in 2000 and from the POLA Art Foundation in 2007. She has been based in The Netherlands from 2000 till 2011. She learned perfumery at Grasse Institute of Perfumery in 2008.
She has been nominated for the Art and Olfaction Awards Sadakichi category, the world’s olfactory art hall of fame, for five consecutive years so far, winning in 2022.
Atelier and Online Academy: http://www.pepe.okinawa
Online Portfolio: http://www.ueda.nl/

Atsushi Yamane

He formed Altphonic Studio in 2004 to create music and videos. He has since recorded, mixed, and mastered major label recordings, TV and film audio, and produced commercials for a variety of industries. From 2016, he began working in Berlin and work with many European clients. Returning to Japan in 2019, Altphonic now focuses on mastering and cutting analog records. In 2023, he studied half-speed mastering at Abbey Road Studios in London and has become one of the best leading engineers in Japan.
See more at Altphonic Studio’s home page:
https://www.altphonic.com/

Contact

The Yanai Initiative office:[email protected]

Dates
  • 1123

    THU
    2023

Place

Ono Auditorium

Tags
Posted

Fri, 10 Nov 2023

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