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Artists in residence at the Villa Kujoyama
2 minBuilt in 1992 by architect Kunio Kato on the Higashiyama mountain in Kyoto, the Villa Kujoyama is a place for interdisciplinary exchange. Its purpose is to strengthen intercultural dialogue between France and Japan.
20 artists – architects, visual artists, photographers, dancers, film makers, culinary designers, etc. – were hosted there in 2019. Dive into some of their work.

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2/11Double Diptych, by Hugo Capron
This work is one of the two fluorescent-paint canvases that make up Double Diptych. Their arrangement next to one another is left up to the curators at the place of exhibition: the artist himself switched the two canvases around during their creation. Born in 1989, Hugo Capron uses an abstract style of painting descended from conceptual painting. His paintings are intended as physical experiences, beyond mere representation.

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3/11La Big Cérémonie, by Simon Moers & Coline Rosoux
Inspired by many spiritual and religious practices, La Big Cérémonie invites the spectator to attend the festive, joyful and magical rituals of a group of fantastical animals celebrating one of their own, now disappeared. The puppet show was produced in 2016 by Simon Moers, an actor-puppeteer, in collaboration with Coline Rosoux, a sculptor. Simon Moers was trained at the Institut supérieur des arts in Brussels and the École nationale supérieure des arts de la marionnette in Charleville-Mézières.

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4/11Pulsion Potion, by Mimosa Echard
Mimosa Echard’s “Pulsion Potion” exhibition consists of sculptures and films made from natural and industrial debris. It was presented in London in 2017 at the Cell Project Space. Born in Alès in 1986, the artist likes to play on the combination of living and dead materials.

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5/11Exile, by Rithy Panh
In Exile (2016) Rithy Panh evokes the memory of his relatives who disappeared during the genocide perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. The Franco-Cambodian director born in Phnom Penh in 1964 is, notably, the creator of France is our Mother Country (“La France est notre patrie”) (2015) and The Missing Picture (“L’Image manquante”) (2013).

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6/11Gusts (“Rafales”), by Benjamin Bertrand
Created in 2017, Rafales is a romantic encounter between the wind, a landscape and a polymorphous couple, almost a hermaphroditic creature. The couple seek out a shared rhythm through the belly-dancing and breathy beats. For Benjamin Bertrand, choreographer, dancer and founder of the company RADAR, which has been based in Poitiers since 2015, dance is where skin, space and sound meet.

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7/11Just an Illusion, After Ed Ruscha, by Isabelle Le Minh
An ephemeral sculpture, Just an Illusion, After Ed Ruscha was made with photographic film unmarred by any image. The work is inspired by the Word Paintings of Edward Ruscha, an American photographer who influenced the history of art during the 1960s in the realms of pop art and conceptual art. Born in 1965, a graduate of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie in Arles, Isabelle Le Minh seeks to explore the essence and limits of photography.

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8/11Character and Invitation (“Caractère et carton d’invitation”), by Baldinger.Vu-Huu
This “C” is part of the new visual identity of the Olivier Debre Contemporary Creation Centre in Tours, designed in 2016 by the Baldinger.Vu-Huu graphic design workshop. In 2008, André Baldinger and Toan Vu-Huu created the graphic design workshop which bears their names. He also teaches typography at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Decoratifs in Paris and the Haute École d’art in Zurich.

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9/11Lunch on the Terrace (“Déjeuner sur terrasse"), by the Laurel Parker Book Workshop
This Japanese paper cover was designed to decorate the menu at an event organised in 2016 by Hermès at the Taillevent restaurant in Paris. The Laurel Parker Book Workshop specialises in the design and manufacture of books by artists and exceptionally-presented objects. Laurel Parker is its artistic director, Paul Chamard its production manager.

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10/11Save Me Mr Tako, by Christophe Galati
A creator, designer and developer of video games trained at Insart Digital, in 2014 for the 25th anniversary of the Game Boy Christophe Galati produced “Save Me Mr Tako”. The game features Tako as its hero, a small pacifist octopus which saves a woman who has fallen into the water and receives the gift of being able to breathe on the surface in exchange for promising not to hate humanity. “Save Me Mr Tako” was selected for the 2016 Tokyo Game Show.

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L'Institut français et le projet

The Villa Kujoyama, an artist's residency in Japan, is supported by the Institut français.