The Golden Thread Gallery is delight to present in collaboration with Flax Arts Studios International Residency Programme an exhibition by Yusuke Saito (Japan).

Yusuke Saito: During my residency at Flax Art Studios, Belfast, I have been interested in hobbies, taste, customs, habits, selection, traces and the aesthetic sense of people. These matters will be changeable depending on the experience I have of people. I found it interesting to know how people think having various experiences which I have never had. In sharing the difference between myself and others, we can notice something new.

During my time here, I have kept collecting rubbish on the street on my way to the studio. I found it really interesting that I could find many things I cannot see in Japan where I live. The rubbish has the traces of people’s lives. Depending on the amount, the kind and the area where I collected, there are various factors of characteristics, public peace and wealth disparity, I feel the reality of life from them. And I have wanted to make my works in response to my local experience.

In my solo exhibition I will show sculptures and collages which are composed with stuff which I have found in Belfast. I will also have a performance to cook Japanese-style non-sweet pancakes named ‘Okonomi-Yaki’ and serve them to the audience.  Generally Okonomiyaki doesn’t have a particular recipe apart from using the wheat flour for cooking with a frying pan. We will add favorite ingredients in it. That way it is quite similar with the way I make my sculptures. I also like the name of the dish, ‘Okonomi’ (= Favorite) + “Yaki”(= Fry).

As I have had various experiences for the first time in Belfast, I would be really happy if everybody could have the first experience of my works with eating the mysterious Japanese dish through various barriers of nationalities, languages, races and religions.

Yusuke Saito