Artist Hiroshi Fuji holds exhibition in Kagoshima, showcasing dinosaurs made from plastic toys
Works on display
Marginal Gallery on the seventh floor of Maruya Gardens is currently holding an exhibition of works by artist Hiroshi Fuji titled “Beyond Expectations! The Plastic Age and My Journey (Japanese title: 予想を超える! プラスチック時代と僕の旅).”
Fuji was born in Kagoshima City in 1960. Influenced by his parents from Amami Oshima Island, he spent his childhood playing around the Oshima Tsumugi area. After completing graduate studies at the Kyoto City University of Arts and working at the National Arts School of Papua New Guinea, he studied “Land and City” while working for a redevelopment agency and urban planning office during the collapse of the bubble economy. Currently, while serving as a professor at the Akita University of Arts and director of the Akita City Cultural Creation Centre, he is engaged in demonstration-style art expressions applying “local resources, apt techniques, and cooperative relationships.”
In 2000, Fuji conceived of “Kaekko,” a system for exchanging toys no longer used by children for Kaeru Points. The project, which began in Itoshima City, Fukuoka Prefecture, has spread throughout Japan as a place people can enjoy exchanging toys, but at the same time, it has “accumulated a lot of objects that even children don’t want.” This art demonstration was born as a beyond-expectation answer to the question, “What happens if we don’t throw them away?”
The show features approximately 50 pieces of works, including drawings and dinosaurs and animals made from thousands of plastic toys. Fuji says it is also “a record of his journey, a point of unity to look back on 25 years of progress” since he left Kagoshima.
The exhibition is open from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. until September 18. Free admission.