Vivinavi

[Exhibition] Dialogue Exhibition Justina ・ Pficht ＆ Seiko Matsuyama

Date
24/01/2025 ～ 29/03/2025

Location
Japanese Cultural Institute Cologne （ Japanisches Kulturinstitut ）
Universitätsstraße 98 50674 Köln

Admission
Free

Opening 24 January 2025, 18:30
Opening Talk Michael ・ Dr. Krejewski （ Art historian

Have you ever been in a strange country and felt familiar with its landscape as if you had known it for a long time? In Japanese, such places are called "original landscapes.

Justina, a photographer who travels between Germany and Japan ・ Pficht and Seiko Matsuyama, an artist living in Germany, traveled to Aomori for the exhibition "Ur: Landschaft - eine Reise".

In northern Japan, popular beliefs about the afterlife are deeply rooted, and in the course of making the documentary film, Feicht learned about the tradition of kuchiyose, a ritual in which a blind female shaman, called itako, makes contact with the deceased, which still exists in Aomori. He is also interested in local folk beliefs and conducts field research through interviews and videos. She is fascinated by the Northeastern region's worldview, which contrasts with the modern, rational world, and connects it with her own inner, poetic world in her work. For Seiko Matsuyama, born in Tokyo, Aomori is a familiar place where she spent every year with her mother and grandmother as a child, but also a foreign land that both fascinated and terrified her. Matsuyama has lived in Germany since 2009, and after her grandmother and mother passed away, she feels a strong yearning and "homesickness" for this place that is the root of her soul and her "original landscape. Her work deals with the phenomenon of memory in both real and imaginary places.

Seiko Matsuyama's process of searching for her "original landscape" in a country where she was neither born nor raised, and Justina ・ Feicht's psychological process of exploring her belief in the afterlife in this country are both expressions of soul movement and journey.
Many believe that death is also a journey.

This exhibition invites us to share in this path that we all take at some point in our lives and to take our own psychological journey.

Justina ・ Pficht studied film and camera at the University of Applied Sciences Dortmund. She has made documentary films in many countries, most recently on the rural exodus in Japan.
Seiko Matsuyama studied graphic design and contemporary art in Japan under Rosemarie ・ Trockel in Dusseldorf. She creates sculptures and participatory installations.

Photo ： left Osorezan © Justyna Feicht, right Filmstill © Shoko Matsuyama