Go for Kogei is a celebration of craft (kogei) in the Hokuriku region, which consists of Toyama, Ishikawa, and Fukui Prefectures. The festival was established in 2020 as a platform for promoting contemporary perspectives on craft. This year, Go for Kogei is proud to host a special exhibition featuring works by 26 artists spanning the genres of craft, contemporary art, and art brut. The exhibition takes place along the Fugan Canal, encompassing three areas extending from downtown Toyama to the bay. Visitors can move between venues by boat, tram, or on foot. The exhibition provides an opportunity for viewers and artists to participate in the construction of new local narratives while approaching crafts from a fresh angle.

Photo: Toyama Tourism Organization

The term “material imagination,” seen in the title of this year’s exhibition, refers to Water and Dreams: An Essay on the Imagination of Matter by Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962), a French philosopher of science. In the essay, Bachelard uses the concept of the “material imagination” to theorize about a poetics of material. He explores the symbolic meaning of water in human culture and psychology, delving into fantasy and individuality within subjective awareness. By picking up common unconscious images, Bachelard paints a picture of the imagination as it stems from matter. Taking the “material imagination” as a key word, this exhibition explores the poetics of art and the nature of individual expression.

Applying such a perspective to art requires that we approach each work as a reflection of the creator’s life, an act that tells their unique narrative. The term “etiology,” also seen in the exhibition title, refers to the origin or cause of a thing, which we can understand here as the motivation driving each artist. These driving forces are of an ineffable nature, both utterly individual and yet somehow universal.

This exhibition takes place along a five-kilometer stretch of the Fugan Canal, encompassing three areas extending from downtown Toyama to the bay. Visitors can travel by boat to view works by twenty-six artists spanning the genres of craft, contemporary art, and art brut. Exhibition spaces include the Fugan Canal Kansui Park, museum galleries, the Nakajima Lock, and Toyama’s historic cityscape.

In cultures throughout the world, water is a symbol of life, purity, creativity, transformation, and the unconscious. Guided by concepts such as the material imagination and water, the exhibition invites visitors to engage in an interplay of self and the external world while experiencing the rich field of symbolic meaning born of fantasy and reality. We are confident that the exhibition will unlock the door to the world of dreams.

Komuro Takahiro, Ancient Dragon, 2021, painted wood. Private collection. [Past work]

Hayama Yuki, Mutability, 2018. Collection of the artist. [Past work]

The exhibition, underpinned by French philosopher Gaston Bachelard’s concept of the “material imagination,” introduces works by twenty-six artists in a diverse range of mediums such as paint, canvas, clay, textile, and metal. The featured works are artifacts of individual expression that transgress the boundaries of craft, contemporary art, and art brut to reflect the lives of their creators.

The exhibition reframes the creative process as a temporal space that fosters human experience, the manifestation of which is artwork. Instead of approaching the artists’ expressive activities as specialized artistic acts, the exhibition places works in dialogue with broader social issues, introducing them in a way that is accessible to the viewer.

This year’s exhibition in Toyama, a “city of canals,” furthers the Go for Kogei project of presenting site-specific installations in regionally symbolic destinations. The exhibition will provide a poetic and philosophical framework tying the artworks to the exhibition sites situated on the banks of the canal. Guided by the concept of water, viewers will trace artworks along the flow of a functioning urban canal, generating an internal landscape.

Kawai Kazuhito, IDC, 2023, ceramic. Private collection. Installation view from Foolish Fire (Newchild Gallery, Antwerp, 2023). [Past work]

Go for Kogei is a celebration of craft (kogei) in the Hokuriku region, which consists of Toyama, Ishikawa, and Fukui Prefectures. The festival was established in 2020 as a platform for promoting contemporary perspectives on craft. This year, Go for Kogei is proud to host a special exhibition featuring works by 26 artists spanning the genres of craft, contemporary art, and art brut. The exhibition takes place along the Fugan Canal, encompassing three areas extending from downtown Toyama to the bay. Visitors can move between venues by boat, tram, or on foot. The exhibition provides an opportunity for viewers and artists to participate in the construction of new local narratives while approaching crafts from a fresh angle.

The term “material imagination,” seen in the title of this year’s exhibition, refers to Water and Dreams: An Essay on the Imagination of Matter by Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962), a French philosopher of science. In the essay, Bachelard uses the concept of the “material imagination” to theorize about a poetics of material. He explores the symbolic meaning of water in human culture and psychology, delving into fantasy and individuality within subjective awareness. By picking up common unconscious images, Bachelard paints a picture of the imagination as it stems from matter. Taking the “material imagination” as a key word, this exhibition explores the poetics of art and the nature of individual expression.

Applying such a perspective to art requires that we approach each work as a reflection of the creator’s life, an act that tells their unique narrative. The term “etiology,” also seen in the exhibition title, refers to the origin or cause of a thing, which we can understand here as the motivation driving each artist. These driving forces are of an ineffable nature, both utterly individual and yet somehow universal.

This exhibition takes place along a five-kilometer stretch of the Fugan Canal, encompassing three areas extending from downtown Toyama to the bay. Visitors can travel by boat to view works by twenty-six artists spanning the genres of craft, contemporary art, and art brut. Exhibition spaces include the Fugan Canal Kansui Park, museum galleries, the Nakajima Lock, and Toyama’s historic cityscape.

In cultures throughout the world, water is a symbol of life, purity, creativity, transformation, and the unconscious. Guided by concepts such as the material imagination and water, the exhibition invites visitors to engage in an interplay of self and the external world while experiencing the rich field of symbolic meaning born of fantasy and reality. We are confident that the exhibition will unlock the door to the world of dreams.

Komuro Takahiro, Ancient Dragon, 2021, painted wood. Private collection. [Past work]

Participating Artists:

Cho Megumu, Furukawa Haruo,Audrey Gambier, Hayama Yuki, Hirako Yuichi, Itagaki Hohzan, Iwasaki Takahiro, Jomura Yoko, Kawabe Jusei, Kawai Kazuhito, Kawakami Kenji, Kim Riyoo, Komuro Takahiro, Kondo Takahiro, Kubo Hiroko, Kuwata Takuro, Masuda Sebastian, Murayama Goro, Nomura Yuka, Ou Sansan(O33), Sakurai Akira, Sasaki Natsumi, Tsujimura Kai, Ueda Baron, Watanabe Yoshihiro, Yokono Asuka

(Total of 26 artists; Asian names given in customary order, surname first)

Kawai Kazuhito, IDC, 2023, ceramic. Private collection. Installation view from Foolish Fire (Newchild Gallery, Antwerp, 2023). [Past work]