RCIC
Research Center for Industrial Culture

Revival 25th Year Anniversary Exhibition Ichisaburo Fujihara Return to the Forest

2022

The aboriginality and sense of time found with compiling and organizing archives

Relying on the one chronological record left at the forest’s cultural museum, the artist Ichisaburo Fujihara (1911-1975) from old-Kasugamura held an art exhibition. It has been 25 years since he presented his work “Ichisaburo Fujihara - An exhibition of stones and pictures (1997)” in the museum. From Ichisaburo’s artworks and the life he lived, he took the opportunity to pass down the traditions of old-Kasugamura by delving deep into nature, history and culture.

The outdoor sculpture works gifted to Ichisaburo at the time of the museum opening spent a quarter of a century scattered around the forest. When collecting the documents to prepare for the exhibition, the whereabouts and name of the art works slowly came to light after looking at the general public catalog of exhibits and receiving testimonies from those involved. By consolidating the list of artworks, and the chronology of the artists, the sense of values and context of the time became visible. Relatives spoke of memories over their lifetime, and we can relive the world view that Ichisaburo must have sensed through sketches of his service in Burma (commonday Myanmar). From the viewpoint of contemporary sculptors, a part of Ichisaburo’s creation activities could be felt. From the exhibition structure that included these short-length documents, it became a great opportunity to find that aboriginality and sense of time again in Kasuga.

  • Collaborator

    Kasuga Forest Cultural Museum, Ibigawa Education Committee

  • Period of collaboration

    2021.12 - 2022.05

Objective and results

By taking in the full picture of the scattered artworks, and formatting them into a list, we were able to chronologically place Ichisaburo’s experiences and the expressed sense of time in history. From the collection of materials from his relatives we discovered military posts and sketches sent to Japan during the time of war, and we scanned these invaluable historical documents to realize them into reusable data. We made the artworks accessible via the internet by 3D scanning the existing large sculpture works that weren’t being held at the museum. We were also able to provide the opportunity to view the artworks online as an archive after the exhibition had taken place.
We were able to provide the related persons and visitors another perspective of Kasuga through a talk event held during meetings to trace the steps of Ichisaburo’s activities.

The role of IAMAS

  • Filming and photography of artworks, the gathering of materials / compilation of images, scanning of artworks / 3D printing / duplicating the sketchbook
  • Announcement flier, layout of the exhibition, artwork list, venue map
  • Youtube : launch of a museum only channel
  • SketchFab : public reveal of 3D data
  • Venue

    Kasuga Forest Cultural Museum

  • Faculty in charge

    • Akira Segawa
  • Operations

    Host:
    Kasuga Forest Cultural Museum

    Assistance:
    Ibigawa Education Committee

    Cooperation:
    The Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences
    Gifu Prefectural Museum
    Sekigahara Ningenmura Art Museum

    Data collection:
    Ryoichi Kodera
    Osami / Junko Fujihara
    Fumio Tsujita
    Iori Chikamochi
    Nobuhiko Iinuma

  • Schedule

    2021.12 Filming and photography of artworks, scanning of artworks
    2022.03 Announcement flier, the gathering of materials, 3D printing, duplicating the sketchbook
    2022.04 The gathering of materials, video editing, layout of the exhibition, venue map, producing the handout, construction
    2022.05 Exhibition