Each year, artists are invited to interpret an annual exhibition theme that engages the public and inspires discussion. The foundation not only offers residencies, but also offers nine major programmes that focus on skills; from an academy that encourages artists to discover artisan trades to photography immersions. The foundation believes in supporting the talent of tomorrow.
It also believes in sharing them with the public, which is why it hosts up to 13 exhibitions each year that are free for visitors to enter. With the aim of using their school textbooks to show how the world has put so much pressure on them, Ambe invited students from the School of the Arts SOTA in Singapore and Furukawa Junior High School in Osaki City to take a textbook of their choice and replace any negative connotations they might have towards it with positive ones.
They then drew a line in the book to map out their future. Ambe took these unbroken lines, and after a careful study of their responses, shredded and folded each work to create a three-dimensional shape. Over the course of the project, Ambe took on the role of listener and used each textbook as a voice for each individual. Where are they headed? Kim creates each piece using the same Zen-like philosophy. Sometimes it takes days and weeks to find the right state of mind. You can call it Yin and Yang in traditional Asian philosophy, or just simply a balance of the opposites.
Yin and Yang are void and fullness. They seem very much opposite notions but in a way they are the same. They are one notion. Traditional Chinese ink painting encourages the artist to open his or her mind to absorb every detail around them to achieve oneness with their surroundings. Kim embraces this philosophy in her own work.
Her dynamic brushwork and undulating landscapes helped make the visitor contemplate the inconsequence of human life in this vast universe. The fast-paced world that we live in made Agathe de Bailliencourt want to encourage visitors to take life at a slower pace.
