FY2021 Socially Engaged Art Support Grant
Comments from the juries
Yasuyo Kudo (Administrative Director, ART & SOCIETY RESEACH CENTER)

Socially Engaged Art (SEA) is not a symbolic practice, but a practice withactuality. Therefore, it is more than a representation of ideas aboutsocial issues. It is important to build platforms and networks toencourage the participation of others, and social interaction becomes anessential keystone of the acts and projects.
While applications were more diverse than ever this year, Eri Honda's“Thus, the human race will die out.” was an attempt to reexamine thepost-corona society through a year-long dialogue with a diverse group of women. I hope thatthe participants in this project will go beyond the role of passive recipients and create adialogue that would encourage critical self-reflection. In addition, I hope that the nineprojects supported this time will present a new way of thinking about SEA in Japan.
Kenji Kubota (Independent Curator)

In response to the unusual situation of the global spread of the newcoronavirus, this year's grant program, now in its fourth year, changedsome of its application rules and invited project ideas under the theme of"Socially Engaged Art Projects Under the Coronavirus Epidemic,"
resulting in the selection of nine projects.
Many of the adopted projects, such as " Thus, the human race will dieout." by Eri Homma (Kyunchome), who will collect "The End of
Humanity/Destruction of Humanity" with women and compile them into a book of prophecy,and "Project F (tentative)" by Bontaro Dokuyama, who will reconsider the new coronavirus
and the nuclear power plant accident in Fukushima with the common theme of "separationfrom others," are worth implementing now. I hope that each selected project can be realized.
Kenichi Kondo (Senior Curator, Mori Art Museum)This year has been tossed around by the coronavirus. This grant too
solicited SEA proposals related to the coronavirus circumstances,
however, we were disappointed to receive many applications that did notmeet this objective. We excluded from the grant those projects that did
not involve the coronavirus circumstances, even if they were excellent asprojects, but we hope that they will be applied again next year. We
received a large number of applications from Japan that could lead to
Photo: Mikuriya Shinichirosocial change, but also maintain the quality of art, and we decided toprovide assistance to as many projects as possible although the amount was small. There
were only a few outstanding projects from overseas, on the other hand, and only Jennifer
Clarke's project to record the "voices" and "stories" of women in Tohoku in the coronavirus

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epidemic was selected. I felt that this project, which aims to visualize and empower women's
daily lives that have been somewhat obscured by the double adversity of the tsunami disasterand the coronavirus, was very meaningful. The project was also highly evaluated for its
feasibility, as they not only had a track record of collaboration projects in Japan but also plansof venues to present the work in Tohoku.
Chiaki Soma （ Representative Director, Arts Commons Tokyo / Art Producer)

As we announced in advance that it would be around ten
projects that would be funded under the coronavirus
circumstances this year, and as we also allowed applications for
prototype projects, the number of applications from Japan
doubled this year, and as a result, a wide range of attractive
Photo: Yurika Kawano

proposals was submitted. I particularly would like to mention

that several proposals were submitted from mid-career artists in their 30s and 40s, whoseprojects were both creative and feasible. The nine projects selected for this year's grant eachuniquely addressed social issues such as gender, education, community, reconstruction, andcare, while also taking into account the limitations caused by the coronavirus pandemic. They
uniquely formulated questions that were not impositions of righty logics, and each hadinteresting artistic methodologies that increased the feasibility of the projects.
Several proposals tackled gender issues that had emerged in various forms in recent years.
Among them, Haruka Kudo's "If five women gather, the plate will break” was a proposal thatclearly outlined the details of research, dialogue, creation, and outputting as an exhibition. As
the artist had already been implementing ongoing collective activities for several years, there
also was an impression that the project would expand beyond a one-time event.
Several projects proposed new perspectives and activities in the "disaster area" ten years
after the earthquake. Among them, Kiyono Kobayashi's "The voices from Bootes” was anambitious project to create "new myths" and "mechanisms of the birth of myths" from theperspective of celestial navigation and research towards the radiation-exposed land, human,and animals, which would be held in the astronomical observatory and rangelands inFukushima. By involving people from various perspectives in the process of observation
tours and ritual workshops, the project stirs high hopes for developmenting a new model ofsocially-engaged art that is only possible 10 years after the earthquake.
Tadasu Takamine (Artist / Professor of Tama Art University)

This time, we did not choose a "grand prize" type of project, so the amountof grant for each applicant would be smaller, but we are to support them
wholeheartedly. Of the two applicants I would like to mention, Marga
Sari's approach continues working in one area, while Kyunchome's projectinterviews and collects a variety of voices. There were impressive phrases
in both proposals that I would like to extract below.
Eri Homma (Kyunchome): "Women who have not been allowed to talkP.02

about the future and their fears." "A new feminism in which many people, regardless of ideology
or gender, can have a stake." "Social problems are not talked about as they are, but as thefuture of if.”
Makoto Nakagawa (Marga Sari): "In gamelan music, there is no composer and the performanceis always carried out by communal agreement on the spot." "Social cooperation based on nonauthorship." "Protecting the community through art activities.”
Yoshitaka Mori (Professor of Tokyo University of the Arts, Graduate School of Global Arts)

The spread of the new coronavirus had a serious impact on sociallyengaged art, as it demands a social “distance distance” from the social“engagement” of art. This situation fragmented social relationships andfurther isolated people, especially those on the margins of society.
In this difficult situation, there were proposals to maintain existing
relationships and to create new ones. In particular, there was Atsushi
Watanabe's "I hate free hugs" which tries to build new relationships withpeople based on the theme of "hikikomori (shut-ins)," Kanayo Ueda's"Kamagasaki-o! Pera," and Joy Kawakuboʼs "Corona online meeting" which aims to build a
network of artists through online lectures for their own survival, which should be commended
as valuable attempts.

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