Born in 1972 in Tokyo, where she continues to live, Sachiko Kazama completed the printmaking course at Musashino Art School in 1996. Kazama explores the past to find the roots of phenomena happening today and creates humorous and critical woodblock prints foreshadowing the clouds hanging over the future.
The exhibitions she took part in include "Cement Cemetery” (MUJIN-TO Production, Tokyo, 2020), “Concrete Suite” (Kurobe City Art Museum, Toyama, 2019), “Plans for Tokyo 2019 vol.2 Sachiko KAZAMA - Babel” (gallery αM, Tokyo), “Weavers of Worlds – A Century of Flux in Japanese Modern/Contemporary Art” (Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, 2019), “FRIEND OF A FRIEND” (Raster, Warsaw, 2019), solo exhibition Dyslympia 2680 (Maruki Gallery For The Hiroshima Panels, Saitama, 2018), “The Long Story” (Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2018), “Yokohama Triennale 2017”, “11th Gwangju Biennale”(2016), “Asian Art Biennial 2015” and many others from in and outside of Japan. Her works have been added to the Takamatsu Art Museum; National Museum of Art, Osaka; Takahashi Collection; Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo; Agency for Cultural Affairs; Mori Art Museum; Yokohama Museum of Art; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art and more. She was given the prize of Tokyo Contemporary Art Award 2019-2021 by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government / Tokyo Arts and Space in 2019, and The 8th ‘Tradition Creatrice’ Art Award from the Japan Arts Foundation in 2016.
Since the dates of the finalists’ exhibition were originally planned to coincide with the Tokyo Olympics, I was eager to exhibit the Dyslympics, but then the novel coronavirus meant the Olympics were postponed until next year and the Dyslympics were likewise left somewhat in limbo. The enormous woodblock print Dyslympics 2680 depicts the opening ceremony of the Olympics in the fictional city of Dyslympia in the year 2680 by the old Japanese imperial calendar system (corresponding to 2020 in the Gregorian calendar). It shows a virus-like sun, maidens preserving the social distancing, and an Olympics held without spectators... Please enjoy this festival of eugenics where we find only elements that bode ill for our times! I will also exhibit other woodblocks, including two new works called PAVILION that depict the titular pavilions as symbols of the negative legacy inherited from the previous Heisei period. They are the heritage that we cannot abandon, even though our current Reiwa era has heralded a new age of the novel coronavirus.
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Comment as a Selected Finalist
It is a great pleasure to have been selected as a finalist for this award. The automative industry is described as a key figure in the economic development of Japan following the World War Ⅱ. It is very welcoming that Nissan, which helped form the backbone of such development as a domestic car manufacturer, is supporting the activities of artists in this way. Personally, I have been considering the rights and wrongs of modern civilization. The moment at which human beings exchanged horses for cars, namely mechanization, was a significant turning point that changed human history. If motor shows and international expositions are the grand trade fairs that affirm the victory of modern rationalism, then I think art exhibitions should function as trade shows conveying the importance of things irrational and oblivious to utility and productivity.