Thank you, Lewis. Today I just wanted talk about my comment and my thought about what public art is going to be. And also, I am interested in reporting two case studies, my recent project, one, a biannual, now ongoing until, my second project in Japan. So first of all I’d like to make a small comment on public art. Traditionally public art consists of monumental sculptures, environmentaldesign, that have been introduced into the existing scenery to add cultural values. It is placed in public spaces either for symbolic reasons or with the aim of increasing the functional or artistic values. However, in the future public art should aim to produce new landscape through interaction and formation of creative relationships between culture and public people. It should not rely on single methodology but site specific to enhance its location, service being undertaken by local inhabitants to ensure that it conforms to their cultural, environmental and social background. It is important that public art should help discover local possibilities and latent potential of the people, expressing the ideas in the visual form as ultimately this will result in increasing tourism and benefitting the cultural worth of the people. It will serve to enhance creativity, imagination and the autonomy of the people they potentially have. For this reason the education of the coordinators and curators also produced the vital and very important also I saw at this conference really contribute arts and those important models, how we have to grow those human resources and also educate the people to make bridges between people and culture through public art. I just am talking my case studies through these case studies I’d like to talk on the issues faced by public art.
The first issue concerns the issue of the notion of public space itself. In the U.A.E. the spaces between buildings is owned by royal families, not the individual investors of the buildings, also developing, but the something between the spaces is owned by the royal families. That means, effectively, there is no public space, in a general meaning. This leads to the question, how to make a space public, and to determine who is referred to in the term public. The public experiment I demonstrated at the biennial included participation by the immigrants no nationals and it tried to establish the concept of public through the distinguishing of the space. I will introduce now one experiment that was introduced into urban areas and I will talk about many other projects, in an attempt to talk about other urban, public art projects but aim to create new kinds of definitions of what’s going to be public, what’s going to be a new urban public space. I just started by showing some of the pictures. This is the design of the biannual, the title is We March Toward a New Cultural Topography. I just am aiming to invite a lot of kinds of artists from global south because everyone knows in the last ten years, China, India, also north Africa, also Middle East, Latin America, is an emerging artists coming up, also they are learning in the western also knows, they are constantly communicating between north and south, also they started communicating between south. Not also they are reporting their pre-modern culture, making bridges and transforming into a new and contemporary art languages which is very strong. So that time now, I just bring back and now, and think about the euro-centric world view and everybody just draws new cultural cartography on their own. Everyone has their own cultural cartography which needs to be drawn again. This is the venue. One of the places is a cultural heritage place. That’s going to one place to the others, about a 20-30 minute walk. The red area is a new art space, the blue area is an old museum. The green area is a historical heritage area called calligraphy square. This is the new space, designed by a Japanese architect. When you see these new buildings its really relevant ideas in the social and cultural art because its reflecting on the environmental and historical heritage design, the center is a new space its typical element of the courtyard and the small alleys, like a labyrinth. These are city scales, there are a lot of courtyard gardens. It’s a kind of the typical style of the Islamic courtyard garden but used in a same private public usage. This courtyards character is very interesting and is using new ideas to make a new public and social space where the people meet together. This is a blank street. These are typical scenery, and very famous trade. Lots of little boats that come from the other side. So these are statistics about the population proposal. 80% of the people actually come from migration. It’s a very multiethnic population. When you see how many people are in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Philippines, Egypt, so all those kinds, urgent matters, how to make relations between nations and non-nations, about who is public, how is attendance to a cultural event, or who should be involved in those kinds of cultural discussions, to be meetings. So this is a kind of little and on instructions on where the public project is. When you see in the pink and orange, and also green, and these are public projects and connected between in-between spaces. When you see in the green part is an oasis. I’m going to show it. I invited an architect and they are a unit from Belgium, they make an oasis and designed the oasis and architecture program. This is a river oasis at the reference. It’s a very beautiful oasis and nearby, also in the U.A.E. Because the oasis is a place people can live its green and has water. So with that water people can live. The oasis is a kind of symbol of the life and garden, giving life. So this is a topology, designed by the architects. This is one of the oases, a kind of public transport, people bus by, the other one is people just making a long ship, in a circle, people sitting inside, talking. And the last one, the third one, is a kind of a circle, a bar, serving nice drinks. This is the bar in the oasis, in front of the museum. You see now how the oasis is designed, the urban structures. Also this is the same as the close up. Also this oasis is very popular because without knowing this is part of the project biannual people come to enjoy and stay there. Also this is another oasis near the mosque. You can see on the left hand side there’s a mosque. So many people come to pray, others just to stop by. So this is a part of the project, a pavilion where people can stay and chat inside. Inside is a little pond, a little water place, which is very nice. Also the designer used ornamental design from Islam. Also he put together his Brazilian ornaments together to form some hybrid structures. This is the structure. What you see in the little green in the middle, is that little pond. This is another public project. It’s a calligraphy square. This is a drawing, this a planning, this is the original planning. Most of the architects tried to make a shade, meaning people stay under the nice shadow, but their ideas are totally different. They wanted to make another type of reflection to just enjoy the different kinds of lighting, so that after evening, people just come to enjoy very much. But the daytime is so beautiful, it’s really like sculptures. Also this a very experimental structure because it’s quite difficult to get in scale, the diameter is 3.6 centimeters to this transparent materials, these kind of materials, are very very experimental. It’s almost impossible to build. The Italian firm worked with the U.A.E. for two weeks. Also this kind of knowledge and technical transmitting with the local people could be very interesting to see. These are the largest project the superplex, the title the bank. But it’s a kind of memory park. You can see the scale of this. Like this. Because the idea is the superplex, here is two people working together as a unit, and they got the information anchored with the local, multiethnic people. And each one has their own kind of favorite memory. Someone mentioned about the public benches and the public lamp, when you see this fountain, it comes from morocco, so all the kinds of memory come from, because most of the workers just go back to their own country one month or two months in a year, that’s the kind of their contract, but sometimes they miss their own countries, but also some of them just bring their own family, but all those kind of are very important to think of, the invisible outcome to be shared, from their cultural identity memory. So this is a very successful project and without any announcement people come to use different places, people start to think and talk about this comes from our countries, these are my memories, giving them to the artists, although a lot of kinds of discussions and dialogue happen. This is extremely popular, and the project. This is another public project and a screening platform. Architects and also the directors working together, they make an outside projection place that’s called the projection. Everybody is very welcome, because if something happens in a theatre and the people just think about it, they have to pay a ticket, this kind of consolation, but this kind of open scale and structure cinema is very inviting. So this is an artist courtyard, the inside is like this, with mirrors. Also this, everyone is invited to drum the cymbals. These are folk sculptures. These are very beautiful light installations through a screen. Also this, she activated, in the courtyard garden. She put in a Japanese style garden. This is a sand installation inside. This is a temporary project. It is a venue of the biannual, its one way of understanding. But once people saw this, the way to use the courtyard garden and also people started thinking about, this is a potential place, and a public space, also to be used in a cultural event or as an art installation, or whatever, so it’s very important to show its possibilities, the potential the place has is. It’s also very important the meanings and the way of thinking to give ideas to the people how to use the public space by their own ideas. This is beautiful workshop run by Tarik, and he invited ten musicians all over the world and the local musician, he is a master, and he is just teaching and listening to local music. This also happened in the courtyard. This is an artist who invited Pakistani workers and musicians to make a temporary performance, also after this performance, this is place is going to be a type of sound installation. This is Tarik’s place, also drummers are moving everyday, they found a temporary possible places to be a concert hall. But no one knows when the concert is going to happen so the whole day Tarik is moving all over the city. Also this is another performance in the courtyard. I just want to say, a lot of the potential, it is important to give awareness to the people, even if people from the outside, the potential of public space, they can create their own public space, be their own ideas and imagination, but then this is a little message about my experience.

I just want to show the next project.It’san Inujima house project. Inuima is a very small island, almost you can walk around in one hour. Also only a few families live there. Most of the families are 70 years old. So now, in 10 years, probably, this island is going to be no-one’s island, because the last ten years no one moved onto this island. This is part of the inland sea. This is a private foundation project, the foundation was founded by Mr. Fukataki. And he just constantly activate these kind of islands, not just here, but other islands as well. This energy project started in 2009, he just invited me as artistic director. I started to talk with the architect to put in an art space, like a small gallery with a characteristic shape and put into several places in the village. It’s a very horizontal structure. This is one of the industrial heritages that is going to be a memorial museum. But we are just going to spread it in a very horizontal way. This is the place of the art spaces. People can walk in between. But the idea is quite interesting. It is a house project. Because house is a house, not public art. But the house is designed to be a type of public gallery. They stay three years, but every three years the installation has been changing. That means the house is going to be kind of a public space, also a place for public art. This is a very interesting idea, those kind of in-between ideas. This is a kind of house, before being renovated. This is one of the houses. This time I invited six young artists, they are under 40 years old and have very very fresh ideas to make a story about the island, to make a new Shangri-La and to encourage the people. This is another renovated house, the renovation is very interestingly done. This is another avenue and structure outside. This a little a child. This a place of plants, the trees are growing. This is the second house, and the second place. It is an outside project. It used to be a miners house that was demolished and one of the artist on the site made a primitive paintings similar to cave paintings. This is kojinharuka, and also the young artist, this is a very interesting structure. The building serves to hold sculptures and to enhance the landscape. He is a very young artist, just 28 years old. She just make a very beautiful project. Here is another piece. She transformed the perception, to find a new vision of the island. This is me. This the other project. This is also old places, the people gathering, and its transformed into this manner. This artist worked with the local people to make films. They worked with stone, and were miners, of the old industry of the island. He hit the stone out of the island, the message being, this island is still arriving, you have to pay attention. All the kind of the village people were in the cast. These are places, for spaces. He made more meditative places like this. All those kind of village people were very excited about this, after this, three years agol three hundred thousand people came to visit. So you can imagine, originally there were only fifty people living here, it was very exciting, people made a guided tour, so it brought a lot of energy to them. So that means, I don’t think that a lot of people moved to live on the island, but with this project brought a lot of visitors to the island, which means, the island has a second a ride, which is an important function of public art. In each place, public art has a different mission, depending on the different backgrounds and conditions. We really have to think about, not just stereotypes, and one type of public arts so now we really have to consider about, the condition of the venue, the history of the venue, also how the people receiving this kind of presentation. This is the end of my remarks, thank you.