toshiaki tomita

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......First of all, I produced Spring in Desert as a book. While editing dialogues with friends, people in the community, and my parents, various analogous thoughts and synchronous images occurred to me. My personal images of water developed into something more universal and “localness” seemed to lead into “globalness.”
I had to think about how to present the work at Yokohama Tirennale 2001. I had the feeling that it would be like stuffing and mounting a living thing. Through I felt it would be meaningful to exhibit a work coming from a local community at an international event, I also had a strong sense of incompatibility. Something was missing. When I had the idea of holding a workshop at my old elementary school, I finally understood where I want to go with Spring in Desert. By meeting local elementary school children, I was able to integrate work I had done on various levels into one story in a living environment. Combing the story with the children’s own images made into something living and vital. Through these encounters with local children I succeeded in linking together in a complete circle the stories I had heard from the local elderly people I had interviewed and my own fervent wish as a “new resident” (as they called me) to recreate this community where I grew up as my “native place” through a kind of mystical alchemy. I felt that I belonged not just to the present time but all the times and places related in local myth told around bonfires by tellers of folktales. Spring in Desert was a document of this circle.
(from Interview with Toshiaki Tomita, Password cat. )


This book titled “Spring in Desert” by Toshiaki Tomita is to be published along with his works for the exhibition at Yokohama Triennale 2001 (from September 2 through November 11, 2001.) However, this book is not exactly the same as the catalogue with the same title for the works exhibited. As the explanation goes, a fieldwork was done for publishing a book. The place around Oonodai, Sagamihara-Shi, Kanagawa-Ken is the author’s hometown, and I returned there from time to time when I was a college student. I found things quite changed after a long absence, and at the same time, I found old scenery such as the remains of copses and irrigation streams where I used to catch insects or make sketches. They are now green belt and walking promenade to remind us of good old days. I returned to Japan from the States where I was studying to prepare for the exhibition and for publishing the book. When I was taking a walk around my house and came near the primary school, I happened to hit an idea that I could create some work with children living in the same place now. The stories folks and parents tell children from their own memories are the common voices from the past to the future. Then, the children living in the same place where I used to live can be the other self of mine in the past and in the future. How wonderful it will be if I could relate the memories of their land and the vision and let them make sure that there is a ring to connect the world not only passing through by the experience of drawing nearby scenery and images! The teachers at Sagamihara Shiritsu Oonodai Primary School were very friendly and cooperative when I asked them to help with my idea. They were also preparing a new program to study and cooperate with their local society. We had a chance to discuss together to create our works with the third graders before the summer vacation.
(from artist book Spring in Desert)

photo: Asami Tada