Australia - Japan Art Exhibitions Initiative: Living Together is Easy

Australia - Japan Art Exhibitions Initiative

			Art Tower Mito, Mito 24 January - 28 March 2004 National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne 27 August - 7 November 2004 Artists: Tabaimo, Tetsuya Nakamura, Taro Shinoda, Kaoru Motomiya, Tadasu Takamine, Akira Yamaguchi, Fiona Hall, Rosemary Laing, David Rosetzky, Ricky Swallow, Susan Norrie and Samuel Namunjdja. Curators: Eriko Osaka (Contemporary Art Center of Art Tower Mito) and Jason Smith (National Gallery of Victoria).
			The September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center dealt a terrible blow to the delicate global balance, shrouding the dawn of the 21st century in chaos and hatred. The present state of the world is very different from the vision of the new century so many had cherished in the last decade of the 20th century. Our disappointed hopes for a global economy, the difficulties of coexisting with different cultures, increasing pollution despite attempts to conserve the environment, the widening gulf between rich and poor, and the looming cloud of war are crushing our sense of ourselves as world citizens capable of transcending country and race and living together in harmony. In this dangerous world, people are now struggling to find their own identity and stance. This exhibition presents a wide variety of works - videos, sculptures, paintings, installations, and photographs - by 10 artists from Japan and Australia who are all striving to create new forms of expression amid the various problems of contemporary society. The exhibition is a cooperative cultural exchange project planned by curators from the Art Tower Mito in Japan and the National Gallery of Victoria in Australia. Organised under the joint auspices of the Japan Foundation and The Asialink Cantre, it will be held first at Art Tower Mito and later at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. Living Together is Easy is part of the Australia-Japan Art Exhibitions Program, an initiative of Asialink and the Australia-Japan Foundation. It is further supported by the Australia Council, the Australian Government's arts funding and advisory body, and the Australian Embassy, Tokyo.