Momentarium : : by Markuz Wernli Saitô

IN_BETWEEN: Empty Lots (Pictures).

Realized within just 10 days, I invited 26 citizens to tell me about their personal visions for the vacant urban spaces that are everywhere in Kyoto. Consequently IN_BETWEEN transformed a remnant space into a temporary gallery and ordinary people into artists who kneaded unfulfilled desires into play dough sculptures.

IN_BETWEEN PROJECT ARCHIVE:
Empty Lots (pics)
26 Visions (in 3D)
Comments
Catalog

Contrary to the overall densely developed city, Kyoto has numerous empty, remnant spaces that often remain unused for decades. These unstructured places have a special and sometimes poetic character all their own. They put no restrictions on us, they invite us to dream, to make the space our own. In these places there is a sense of loneliness, but also of possibility. Due to high inheritance taxes and maintenance costs many old homes are demolished when their owner passes away. The narrow clearances are turn into parking lots or remain vacant sometimes for decades – even along major traffic arteries.

A Photographic Inventory (March 2009)

Nakagyo-ku and Sakyo-ku Ward: Shimodachiuri, Nishii-ori-cho, Ohara-Higashikuramaguchi, Imadegawa, and Marutamachi Street.

IN_BETWEEN

Phantom Houses (detail views)

Closer inspection reveals on the side walls of vacant lots the somewhat eerie traces (old rooflines) from houses long gone... Some samples from Marutamachi and Imadegawa Street.
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Hundreds of vacant lots with great potential.
What do you envision these places to be?
Send your ideas along!

CURATORS WITHOUT GALLERIES / CONSERVATEURS SANS GALLERIE (CSG) is an international art organization established in 2009 by curators and citizens in Japan. Today CSG provides unusual artistic ventures to people worldwide who are excluded from the art system and institutionalized culture. CSG realizes independent, aesthetic interventions that create surprising art experiences in the everyday context through subtle shifts within human presence and co-existence.

Credits: Project IN_BETWEEN was made possible with the indispensable support of Yuka Saito, Makiko Hori, Tagaki-san, Mie Matsuoka, Ichikawa-san (barber), Thiery Le Cam, Paul Blazek, Lehan W. Ramsay, and all project participants.

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Momentarium creates situations where our very presence becomes the catalyst for shifting experiences we can integrate into our lives by fusing reality with co-created artifice.