<essays> Chisai in 2024 (2)

Long time no see! Chisai wrote previous essay (1) about what she did in April 2024. Today, Chisai remembered days in May. Follow her!!

At the end of April, Osamu Kokufu's exhibition opened in Kitakyushu, Japan. On April 29, the anniversary of his death, his sister and many others came there, and his senior and artist Kenji Yanobe gave lecture about the memory of Kokufu. At that time, two big things happened to me.

The first was meeting a Chinese university student. One day I got a message from him about Kokufu. He lives in Wuhan now, he happened to find Kokufu's art book at a bookstore near his university. And he bought it even though it was expensive because it is an import book! He opened it, was surprised and moved. Immediately he searched for "Osamu Kokufu", but he couldn't get any information because the Chinese search engine was not Google. But when he also searched on Chinese social media, he found the word "Osamu Kokufu" on Chisai's social media. Then we started exchanging messages a lot until today :D

Second, I applied for a paper competition at the Tainan Art Museum in Taiwan. One day during the exhibition in Kitakyushu, the gallery owner was away for a few hours, I spent time by myself and applied to the museum. In fact, in the fall of 2023, I applied for a paper in English in the same way. It was sponsored by two universities in Palestina. Their email wrote, "Your paper has been accepted. Please wait for our next information". However, the war began a week after it and I couldn't go there. But I realized, "Let's keep sending my papers to the world!". That's why I applied for the paper contest in Taiwan and I wrote in Chinese. As a result, it passed. I will write about this later.

Mr. P came to the exhibition. He is my important friend who invited me to "The Nature of Cities". Just then, at online event for "The Nature of Cities," he introduced Kokufu's video work. We met at Kokufu's exhibition in Kitakyushu, and he asked me to come to Berlin and explain Kokufu's artworks. I also had something to say about Kokufu, so I decided to go.

After it, I came back to my home in Kyoto. It was in May. Soon my friends, Chinese, Taiwanese and Chinese came here! While eating ramen with them, we talked a lot about recent art. It seemed like my Chinese speaking test! A Chinese person and I went to see Kokufu's artwork in Osaka.

At that time, the Tainan Art Museum sent email to me; "Your paper has passed. Please send us a longer paper by two weeks. And will you come to the presentation in July? Will you speak in English or Japanese?". When I applied for it, I was confident. But I would pass it, actually I was worried, "What? Why?". Immediately I replied to them, "I am going to make a presentation in Chinese!". In fact, I have never spoken Chinese in public! At the same time, the day of my trip to Berlin is drawing near. Why am I going to Berlin? See you next time.

～～～ <essay> Chisai in 2024 (1)　　　　　<essay> Chisai in 2024 (3)～～～