mining future project
sachi miyachi
17 november 2019 - 21 december 2019
Opening Sunday, November 17, 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM
The second episode of the Transformation series
The Transformation series is a triptych of consecutive solo exhibitions exploring crossovers between visual art and architecture. Artists Hili Greenfeld (Israel), Sachi Miyachi (Japan), and Paul Devens (the Netherlands) have been invited to conduct artistic research into the location, architecture, and social history of Bradwolff Projects and to transform the characteristic space. The research practices of all three artists play with the boundaries of the space, the ways in which these are crossed, and the manner in which the visitor is invited.
Sachi Miyachi – Mining Future Project
Sachi Miyachi is the second artist in the Transformation series at Bradwolff Projects. As an installation and performance artist, Miyachi focuses on exploring everyday spaces. The space of the current Bradwolff Projects was once part of the surgery building of the former Burgerziekenhuis in Amsterdam East. Since its construction in 1891, its societal purpose, social function, and role in society have changed: a transformation from hospital to project space.
For ‘Mining Future Projects’, Sachi Miyachi interprets the walls of Bradwolff Projects as her physical and artistic object. For Miyachi, the walls of the space are a layered collection of memories, a physical reflection of activities and transformations, of ideas and approaches. Miyachi takes a journey through the history of this space by exposing the layers that have been applied to it over time. The walls thus become the physical and artistic canvas themselves: Miyachi scrubs the layers from the walls of the exhibition space and vacuums up the dust. She interprets this dust as material for future artworks. The spatial installation shows another aspect of this journey through time. The installation is constructed from Bradwolff Projects’ collection of ‘backstage standby objects’, such as pedestals, props, and movable walls, which are partly kept in stock behind the exhibition space. In this way, she combines visible and invisible parts of Bradwolff Projects’ history in the installation.
For years, Miyachi has been conducting research into her immediate surroundings, everyday rituals, and actions, doing so through interaction with visitors. Sachi Miyachi uses spatial forms and the location to take her visitors along in her shifts in perspective. In an earlier project by Miyachi at Bradwolff Projects, Hair Washer District [2012], she created a space-filling installation in which she invited visitors to participate. By taking a seat in the salon, visitors underwent the ritual actions of hair washing. As a result, the public experiences both the space and everyday activities differently.
Sachi Miyachi [Tokyo, Japan, 1978] studied art and anthropology at Wako University in Tokyo. She then came to the Netherlands to study art at the Rietveld and Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam. She has won several awards: the AIAS Honorary Prize in 2008, a prize from the Alliance of Independent Art Schools, the Great KiK Prize in 2012, and the Theodora Niemeijer Prize in 2014. Miyachi has exhibited internationally. As recently as 2019, she exhibited at Sculpture Biennial ARTZUID, It Happens Anyway at W139, and held a residency with Beautiful Distress/Vijfde Seizoen in Japan.